


The Blind Man and a Fool to Lead Him

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-15
Updated: 2004-09-15
Packaged: 2018-05-30 21:05:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6440650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for series ends and AtS5.   Lorne summons Spike to Las Vegas asking a favor of him--to take a damaged Wesley to the Watchers in England, and protect him along the way.    Spike/Wesley slash + Lorne friendship.  (complete)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blind Man and a Fool to Lead Him

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

1.

"..You haven't got anybody with you have you?" A faintly sick expression crossed Lorne's face, and if possible, he looked slightly more green than usual as he opened the door without unlinking the chains. 

"No Angel," Spike said firmly, answering the unasked question. "Not gonna be either."

"Is he--no. Don't answer that and make a liar of me. Come on in." Lorne closed the door only long enough to unhook the chain. Gesturing with a nod of his head and a wave of his sea breeze, Lorne led the way into what could only be called his boudoir. "Thanks for keeping it under your bleach, muffin."

Spike shrugged, pausing to shake the last of the desert dust out of his coat, and stepped over the threshold. "Not like I talk to him much these days."

"If you talk to him at all, you're the only one. Hasn't got too many friends. Not that I'm making that any of my concern again. I told Angelcakes before it all went down that that's it--he's on his own." Lorne shrugged a shoulder, and looked around the brightly hued living room, seeming momentarily at a loss. "Still--call it the mama bird in me, I gotta check up every now and again."

"He knows."

Lorne half turned at that. "Yeah? Well that figures. He got himself a new team yet?"

Spike shoved his hands into his duster with an eloquent shrug of his shoulders. "Don't think he's planning to. He's not exactly swimming in volunteers to help him fight the good fight these days. Thankless task, heroing. Especially when none of the humans survive to appreciate the great heroic effort." Spike paused. "Or possibly the great heroic flop in this particular case. Haven't made up my mind yet. More rhymes with flop than effort, y'know."

Lorne stared at Spike.

Spike stared back.

"About that, the dead humans thing." 

"Yeah?"

"Got somethin' to show ya here, but you gotta promise not to let it get out."

"What?" 

"Wesley."

"Tell me he's in a urn, not on a slab, mate."

"Nah. Neither. He's still kicking. Well, mostly kicking. And here.

"What? How?" 

"Little blue girl. Yea tall? Wouldn't know a metaphor if it bought her a drink? And speaking of drinks, I need another. What's your poison, petit four?"

"JD neat. Leave the bottle." 

"You got no poetry in your soul."

"My soul's got all the poetry."

"What? And you've been keeping this delicious talent to your lonesome all these years?"

"Haven't heard me after the second bottle, mate." Spike grimaced. "Or the first." 

"Yeah? Maybe I'll have to some time. C'mon. Blue-eyed boy's still sleeping the sleep of the completely doped, so we've got a while."

Once they sprawled over arm chair and tastefully appointed sofa respectively, Lorne raised his drink in a cursory and largely habitual toast, tossed back half, and coughed. 

"Too strong?" The scarred eyebrow arched and Spike tossed back his second shot neatly. 

"Nah. Just strong enough. Guess how long I'd last drinking like this if I had the stuff neat, huh? It's the secret to hosting, my peroxide abusing friend. One of 'em anyway. You gotta drink to get through the night but stay more sober than the patrons."

"Does it work?"

"Depends on the night." Lorne winced. "And the singers. Gotta admit, bursting into joyful song ain't the best idea for some of these people."

"Some days, you've gotta dance, gotta sing."

Lorne held up a hand. "Please. We do not use the Dance word in my household. Ever."

"Oh?"

"Childhood trauma." Lorne waved the hand not currently occupied by the glass and its residue of sea breeze and several vaguely pink ice cubes. "Refill?"

"Ta." Watching Lorne master the small bar, Spike asked, "So what's going on with the Wonder Watcher? Thought he'd kicked it."

"You see the body?"

"I was a bit busy at the time."

"Yeah. We all were. 'Cept Big Blue. She had a little time to pay our boy a visit before meeting up with the rest of you folks. And round here, big emergency rooms don't need ID to operate on a critical patient."

"Right. He's alive." Spike turned his glass in his hands, watching the whisky swirl and settle. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad and all, but why call me? Never been his best mate, me."

"Don't have to be. You're his only mate." Lorne held up his hand. "Work with me here. Pretend you two got along, sweet pea, and do the math. Gunn's dead, Illyria's off wherever Illyria goes, and Angel's Angel. Who's left?" 

Long moments passed in which Spike badly wished he had an answer to offer.

"Don't strain yourself." Lorne said gently, handing over the drink. "Nobody but me, and I can't take care of him here."

"What makes you think I can? I haven't even got a home." Which hurt more to admit than Spike had expected. 

"That's it there. See. Wes was knowledge boy. Put him anywhere and what's the first thing he does? Hit the books. If it's written down in Wolfram and Hart, there's a good chance he's read it. The more they don't want it read, the more likely he is to have read it. So far they think he's dead, but how long you think that's gonna last?"

"Mate, if you're hitting me up for the extra dosh you need to keep him safe and get him mobile, you've got the wrong vampire." Spike heard the bitterness in his own voice and chased it with a swallow of whiskey. It'd go away eventually, the feeling of entitlement. Best to get used to soon as possible.

Lesson the first: remember that you are a thing.

"Nah. I want you to take him with you."

Lesson the second: remember that real people only call you when they need something.

"Easier to hide one than two," Spike said, ignoring the frisson of unease at the nape of his neck. "Besides. I've got the bike--and that's all. Can't bloody well strap him to me with twine. You expect me to stash him somewhere safer than this and play guard dog till he's on his feet again?" 

"Uh. Sort of." Lorne grimaced. "And not really." 

Lesson the third: it can always get worse.

Unless that was lesson the first. Some days, a bloke needed to shift them around some. 

"Excuse me?"

"Sort of," Lorne repeated, drawing breath, "see, the recovery isn't exactly going so smooth, so there's not gonna be any waiting for him to come back to health.."

Yeah. Definitely lesson the first. It can always get worse. "Look, I'm not nurse-maiding an injured human across the continent while being hounded by the biggest and baddest law firm in the history of lawyers on a bleeding motorbike."

"He's not injured--not like that," Lorne interrupted. "It's not his body, it's his brain."

Lots worse.

Still staring morosely at his whisky, Spike vaguely heard Lorne say something about a car. 

Bloody fantastic. 

 

2.

"So why've you got him doped?" Spike asked, opting for the concrete over the horrific conjurations of a pessimistic mind. "He a vegetable?"

"Nah. Nothin' like that."

"Lose the power of speech? Can't make sense of that bloody great intellect of his?"

"Speech is fine. He could. If."

"If?" Bloody hell. Well. Madness, Spike could do. Wasn't as if he hadn't the practice. 

"Yeah?"

Spike's patience ran out. "If what?"

"If he hadn't come back missing something kinda critical to it."

"Sanity? Because believe me, when you've had the best nutcase, the rest pale." Spike's fingers twitched impatiently against his thigh. 

"He's as sane as he ever was, and that's why it's buggin' him." Lorne threw back the last of the third Sea Breeze and topped off his glass with several shots of Jack Daniels from Spike's bottle. "The great brain can't read."

"What? Blind?"

"Nah. He just can't read. At all. Stares at the page and the words don't mean anythin'. We've been keeping him sedated since he found out." Lorne's grimace was particularly eloquent, as was the following deep swallow of whiskey. "He hasn't been taking it too good, see--thought it'd be kindest to knock him out till I could figure out what to do." Lorne glanced down the hallway, then back to Spike, shrugging and wrapping his hands around the tumbler when there was a faint giggle to be heard from down the hall. "He seems happy enough on the drip." 

Spike attempted and failed to imagine Wesley Wyndam-Pryce giggling, and chose the easier question. "How's a bloke like that forget how to read?"

"He hasn't forgotten," Lorne corrected, resting his elbows tiredly on his knees. "It just doesn't happen. Books, numbers, papers--he gets nothin'."

"Can he write?"

"Yeah. Funny thing there. He can write but then he can't read it. It's not pretty, pumpkin."

"Can't you have him sing and do that -" Spike gestured ineffectually with one hand, "read-ey thing you do and find out what's wrong?"

"Yeah. Tried that."

"And?" Spike fixed Lorne with his best 'don't fuck me around, mate' glare. 

Lorne met his eyes dead on. "Great big nothing."

"You couldn't read him?"

Lorne shrugged again, and looked away, straightening a stray tassel on the nearest throw pillow. "Oh, I could read him. Just nothing there."

"No future?"

"No end either. Just a whole lotta nothin'." Lorne shuddered, and drained the last of his drink. 

"How'd he take it?"

Lorne swallowed down the last of his whiskey and palmed the glass before looking into Spike's eyes. "He just did."

"Relieved?" Spike asked, praying briefly to any passing god well-inclined to a vampire's wishes that he wouldn't be saddled with an injured and suicidal human. Soul and guilt alone were enough to make him fairly certain that he wouldn't be getting out of this little meeting Watcher-less, but a bloke had to draw the line somewhere. And Wesley 'just taking' finding himself unable to read didn't sound much like a reason for Lorne to leave him doped out of his mind. 

"Not really. Not disappointed either. After the first panic and bottle breaking lunge, he quieted down pretty good. Dunno how much of him's home in there now though. Haven't taken him off the drip long enough to find out."

"But calm?" 

"Oh yeah. Real calm." 

"Good. Don't fancy him flaunting his neck at me the whole trip hoping I'll get peckish."

"You'll take him then?"

"Didn't say that," Spike said, knowing there wasn't really a chance he'd have a choice, and badly wanting to light up, if only to put a screen of smoke between him and knowing red eyes. "But suppose I could spare the time for a fellow in arms saving the world, even if it amounted to bugger-all last time round. And I got some questions before I'm agreeing, mind."

"Of course."

"First, why can't he stay here till he gets better or becomes a high paid gigolo who's not expected to read anyhow?"

"Once Wolfram and Hart get word he's kicking, they might not be so chipper about all the information he's got swimming around in that pretty head of his. And if they decide he's some kinda threat, he's gonna need muscle and he's gonna need speed if he's gonna make it before they get around to him." Lorne's jaw tightened, and he stared at his glass as if doing so would grant him a visit from the refill fairy. "And I meant what I said, babe. I'm done with all things Wolf, Ram, and Hart. For good." 

"That would be question two." Spike waggled two fingers at Lorne, narrowly missing the rude gesture he was tempted to display to the entire conversation. "Where'm I taking him? I'm not signing on for a lifetime of racing around the globe with the lawyers maybe-or-maybe-not half a step behind us."

"You're taking him to the Watchers. Unless you can think of someone better equipped to take care of him."

"Not bloody likely." Spike felt his still heart sink in his chest. "This is a lesser of two evils deal, you understand. Why can't they come pick him up?"

"He won't let me call them."

"Oh bloody hell." Incredulity flashed through Spike. "He's in danger for his life, can't read, can't research, can't even get a bloody letter in the post, and he's being picky?"

"Proud, I think."

"Mate, if he's too proud for the Watchers, what makes you think he's not gonna be too proud for me?"

The curl of Lorne's lips was particularly eloquent. "Blind hope."

Spike stared, sceptically. 

"Alright, blind hope, desperation, and the crush he nursed on you last winter. Come on, sweet roll. He can't stay here. I figure my contacts can get you a car good enough to get out of here, no questions asked on the plates. Might even be willing to take care of the windows issue if you wanna travel by day, but I figure Wolfram and Hart won't be expecting a vamp other than Angel to take him anywhere, and you already know they're keepin' tabs on the big boy. ...Spike?"

Spike had stopped listening the moment Lorne actually told him something he didn't know. "Crush?"

Lorne groaned. "Yeah, crush. Caught him humming Christmas carols in the elevator, and lemme tell you, mild mannered and meek, the English are really not."

One scarred eyebrow lifted with sceptical disbelief. "Y' don't say."

"Know what? I don't. But Wes was thinking some heavy think. Might not be so springtime fresh these days, but it's the best I've got." 

"Now why didn't I smell it on him?" 

"Look--I dunno. Maybe he's just gotten real good at hiding the whole thing being around Angelcakes this long. The fact is, he's had the hots for you too." Lorne set his glass on the table, folding his hands in front of him. "Come on, y' hard baked biscotti. This isn't for the world--this is for Wes."

"This is also for you," Spike said, unmollified, and vaguely nonplussed by the notion of the Head Boy thinking the naughty think in his direction since Christmas. Not that Spike wasn't used to being the object of many and varied desires, but--Percy?

"I'm well aware of that, believe me."

Huh. Right then. Percy. Spike got back to the more important bits and filed away the maybe-hots for later perusal. "So what're you going to give me?"

"I thought the soul meant you hadda help the hopeless."

"You've got me confused with another vamp who has far inferior fashion sense and far more hair gel," Spike said, leaning back, thumb tucked comfortably into a belt loop. "What do I get?"

Sighing, Lorne rubbed his temples. "What do you want?"

"A good car for a start. None of this poofy convertibles and Cadillacs shit. At least six cylinders and a tank big enough to take us through a few cities before we have to stop for petrol. Leather interior."

"That all?" Lorne's voice hovered on the brink of sarcasm.

"I did say for a start." Spike held up a hand, unfurling a finger for each item. "Good car, good cooler for me blood. I'm not living on butchers' rations for this one. Which brings us to item three--the blood. All human. Any type but B. Always tastes off." Spike paused, muttering each item back to himself under his breath to find his place, "Oh yeah--item four--first class overnight tickets registered under the name W. Banks and W. Banks direct from Boston to Heathrow. And English passports for William and Wesley Banks."

"God. You're gonna clean me out. Anything else?"

"It's Vegas, mate. Raise your cover charge by a ten and you'll have it back in no time." Spike paused as this thought reminded him of a last bit of critical Spike upkeep, then held up the bottle of Jack in illustration. "Wouldn't mind a few of these for the road too."

"Deal."

And that, Spike decided, was about as good as a vamp like him could reasonably expect. It was at least a bottle of Jack above most of Angel's offers. "Right then. Take me to your Watcher."

 

3.

Somewhere in the part of Wesley's mind that wasn't happily giggling over the lovely sensation of floating, he felt that something was severely wrong.

Well, no.

He knew that something was severely wrong, but every time he attempted to grasp it for examination, it slid away like fish.

Silvery fish. The ones with the almost transparent bits along their bellies.

Did they fluoresce? He couldn't remember.

Oh. The delightful floating feeling was back, and Wesley gave himself over to the next wave, letting himself tumble and spin with the remarkably unstable world.

Morphine.

Named for Morpheus.

God of dreams. 

In... how many demon cultures beyond the human? Wesley couldn't recall. Made a mental note to look them up when the drip was removed, and vaguely waved his hand in front of his face, watching his fingers sculpt the air into the letters of his mental note. 

It never looked like writing on the wavering air.

Oh. No. That was right.

He couldn't look it up.

He couldn't look anything up.

The rolling and spinning of the world were beginning to grow unpleasant, leaving Wesley nauseous as he contemplated his inability to look up the origins of the drug.

Yes, yes, he was quite sure he wanted the spinning to stop, and brought his hand down on the taped IV line, a frustrated vague moan escaping him as his fingers sought for slippery purchase.

"Damned fish."

He gasped.

Wait. No. No. He hadn't gasped, but he was most certain he'd heard one. In fact, Wesley was rather sure he'd made no sound at all other than--oh, he'd said that out loud, had he? That would, perhaps, explain the stunned look on Spike's face. "Hello, Spike," he said, since Spike wasn't really there. 

Spike was dust, of course, but he was a nice change from the fish, and rather more appealing to look upon for all that the fish swam around him like wiggling stars. 

"Fish?"

"Oh yes." He made a vague grasping gesture for the fine-boned face, far out of his grasp. "Fish. Little ones. Fish everywhere--I was just wondering if they might fluoresce, you know. It's really very difficult to get a grasp on anything around the fish." Giving up, he let his hand drop to the mattress, and redirected his attentions to feeling the only slight roughness of the cotton beneath his palms. New sheets, but perhaps a shade nicer than his own. One-hundred-fifty threads per inch were serviceable, but this was downright lovely. "Feel the bed linens, Spike. They're rather nice. Do you think Lorne has sensitive skin?" Of course, Spike, being a hallucination, would be unable to touch the sheets, but there was no call for being rude to the twice dead--three times if one counted Spike's months in the amulet. "Spike?"

"Yeah, mate?"

Were hallucinations supposed to make indentations in the mattress like that? Wesley frowned, the remainder of his intended question flitting away from him before he could give it voice. "You're not real," he informed Spike solemnly, instead.

"I'm what, now?"

"Not real," Wesley repeated himself, reasonably certain on this matter. "In fact, you were killed by the senior partners' demon army and died once more fighting at Angel's side. Don't you think it's ironic that Angel's gotten you killed three times now? I think I should be rather fed up with him were that the case with me, and make absolutely certain to avoid him at all times in the future."

"I'm the bad penny, me. Keep turnin' up, even when I'm supposed to be dead. Got that in common then, don't we?" 

Wesley was also certain that his hallucinatory Spike wouldn't be lighting a cigarette in his sickroom. Which meant...

He pinched Spike's thigh.

"Ow! Bloody hell, what'd you do that for?"

"You're Spike," Wesley said, feeling the distinct need to make that clear to everyone in the room, both of them and the fish. 

"Mate, we settled that about five minutes ago. Yeah, I'm Spike. You're Wesley. Big, green, and tuneful out there is Lorne. Who, may I add, did not tell me anything about amnesia." The last sounded suspiciously like grousing. 

"You're really Spike. Alive."

"As alive as I ever get, yeah."

"I thought you'd all died. All of you but Illyria."

"Nah." Spike drew a leg up, resting his boot on the bed. Wesley attempted to summon righteous indignation over the unclean boot on _his_ sick bed, but when it didn't come, it seemed perfectly reasonable to abandon that line entirely. The boot was, after all, rather fascinatingly scuffed. "Only you fragile humans." Cold fingers captured Wesley's wrist, lifting it and pressing against his pulse pointedly. "And that seems to've had a thirty-three point lots-of-threes percent error rate in the reporting." 

"Spike? Why have you come?"

"Lorne called me."

Those words eddied around Wesley in the thick air, and he decided he didn't particularly like them. "I didn't ask Lorne to call you."

"Yeah?"

"Why would Lorne call you?"

Drawing deeply on his cigarette, and scrutinizing the lit end intently, Spike pursed his lips. "Well... I'm a good choice, aren't I?"

"While I could dispute that argument, Spike, I'm more interested in knowing why he called anyone at all."

Spike must have been finding the end of his cigarette _terribly_ fascinating. 

"Would you like an ash tray, Spike?"

"Huh? Nah. S' what the plant's for, right?" Turning away, Spike tapped ash into the pot of the unfortunate ficus, speaking again, slowly. "He heard from the Watchers. Rupert, I guess. They got something that might help you and I'm the man to get you there."

Wesley felt his blood cool around the warm eddies of morphine as the thought floated its way fully to the surface. "I want nothing to do with the Watchers Council." His spine, however, did not seem inclined to cooperate with the rigidity it was supposed to wear when the Watchers were mentioned, and Wesley simply gave it up, and directed all stiff dignity possible to his eyes. 

Which Spike seemed utterly unable to read. Thick pillock. "Yeah, mate, but they want something to do with you, and he figured it's your best bet to get healthy again, right? You can come back here any time if it doesn't work out, no hard feelings, always have a drip and a dram waiting for you with Lorne, so what's the harm, eh?"

Wesley narrowed his eyes, as if by doing so, he could force Spike to read his bloody mind already, and cling to all the many reasons that going to the Watchers was a bad idea, but Spike remained obtuse, and there were too many reasons, and they broke apart in a silvery shoal, leaving him exhausted and with holes in his pathetic net. 

"And not like your Da's going to be there waiting for you." Spike's voice had dropped, taking on a soothing tone that simply didn't suit him speaking to Wesley. "It's all Rupert's show, and irrational prejudices against vampires aside, he's never been a bad sort, and-" It was Spike's Fred tone, and Wesley wished he'd stop it. It was disturbing the fish. 

"Spike!"

Spike stumbled to a halt, and cursed as the lit tip of his cigarette reached the filter, singeing his fingers.

"You're babbling." Wesley paused, Spike's actual words finally reaching him on a fluffy mint green eddy in the morphine fog. "And I hardly think that Rupert Giles's prejudice against vampires is at all irrational."

"Is when that vamp helped him save the bloody world three times over."

"Which is immaterial," Wesley said, hoping it was, because those damned thoughts were still slipping and silvering the air when he tried to think. His inner Watcher seemed capable of functioning on instinct. How useful since he rather hadn't a clue at the moment what he was saying. "The point, Spike."

Spike held up one hand, ticking off each item as he spoke. "You're goin' to London to see a bloke about a cure. I'm the muscle, so I'm your escort. Lorne's our funding. If it don't work or you don't like it, you get to come back here, me as escort, all expenses paid." Spike paused, looking at the last folded finger intently, and then added, "and I'm a bloody good choice compared to Angel."

Angel. Well that thought wasn't a fish. It was rather like a ... oh, what were they called? Like an out of control jet ski roaring through his peaceful silvery shoal. 

Wesley closed his eyes, waiting for the expected ache, the inevitable stab of guilt and resentment, and sighed, almost smiling when he found that it, too, must have been carried away by the undertow, and let himself be enveloped once more by cool silvery wriggly flesh. It felt... ...rather nice for the moment.

"That smile mean you're agreein'?"

Wesley left his eyes closed, even when he felt the weight lift from the edge of the bed, and nodded. "Oh yes. I suppose so," he agreed vaguely, and let the undertow carry him away as well.

 

4.

Spike wondered if he shouldn't have pressed Wes's morphine pump like that to wring consent out of him, then brushed it aside. The man was far enough from overdose, smelled otherwise healthy enough, and it was all for the Watcher's own good anyhow.

For the sake of expedience, Spike was still more than willing to exert a little pressure in the right places without so much as a nag from his soul. His soul was pretty bloody quiet on the little things.

In fact, the longer Spike had his soul, the less he understood Angel's bloody great ongoing guilt over every little thing in his path when there were so many better reasons for the great poof to flex his atonement. The big things, when he really thought about it, shrank the little things into some bloody impressive perspective. 

Lying to Wesley to get him to come along like a good little boy didn't even rate a blip on the angst chart.

Humming under his breath, he retreated to the living room to investigate the last of that Jack Daniels. 

"Oh, muffin, you didn't." 

At Lorne's weary words, Spike stopped humming. "Huh?"

"You lied to him?" Lorne asked in a tone that begged Spike to deny it.

So Spike did. "Nah. Made a few educated guesses. What? You don't want him coming back here?" Spike affixed what he thought of as his most innocent expression. Again, not saying much, but a bloke did what he could.

Lorne sighed, and rubbed at his temples. "Sing another one, cupcake."

"Look, he agreed to go." Spike threw himself into the couch, propping his feet on the low table. "Keep him doped up, and what's the problem?"

"The problem, my bleached friend, is that he can't stay doped forever."

"So? I'll let the Watchers sober him up." Simple. And the Watchers bloody owed him. 

"And tell him what when he asks why you kept him doped from Nevada all the way across to London?"

Spike shrugged. "I'll think of something," he said dismissively, shaking out another cigarette and lighting it. "Never was one for planning ahead. I'm a thinking-on-his-feet bloke."

Lorne groaned outright. 

"What?"

"Nothin' pumpkin. Nothin' at all."

"And anyhow, it's not my problem, is it? I'm only the escort, not his bleeding nurse or weeping lady love." Spike's feet thumped down on the floor, as if to make the point clear that he was ready to leave immediately. "So how soon can you get us the car?"

"Should be tomorrow. I put in a call to my brother Numfar, and he's got a couple you can check out all by yourself, cause I don't know a carburettor from a clutch." Lorne held up a hand, forestalling Spike's attempted question, "and I have a strict policy of one family phone call per year--that was it."

"Wasn't going to ask for that," Spike said, flicking ash into the nearest plant.

"Oh, yeah. What then?"

"Your brother's a used car salesman?"

"Yeah."

Spike examined Lorne critically. "He dress like you?"

"Yeah."

Spike nodded, sagely. "It's the suits, isn't it?"

"Pretty much. I'm already a host, so it was used car salesman or Liberace impersonator for him, and between you and me? I really got all the family potential for music." Lorne looked Spike over. "But you--you got a decent set of pipes. How bout comin' down to the club while you're waitin' for sunset tonight and serenading us with a few classics? What do you say? Billy Idol, on the house?" 

"Nah. Thanks mate, but I'm not feelin' up for audiences these days. Still savorin' the last, yeah?" He inclined his head to the small bar. "Could accept the offer of free drinks, though." 

Lorne watched Spike narrowly until Spike widened his eyes in his best 'who, me officer?' facial expression. Lorne sighed. "Yeah. Especially an audience who can see into that over processed little skull of yours, right pumpkin? I swear, that kinda stubborn must run in the family." 

"Don't know what you're talkin' about." 

"How 'bout hummin' a few bars of Singin' in the Rain?" Lorne challenged. 

"Fraid I don't know that one," Spike said, drawing casually on his cigarette. 

"Livin' on a Prayer?" 

"Nope. Sorry." 

"White Wedding?" 

Spike looked directly into Lorne's eyes. "Never heard it before in my life." 

Lorne mixed himself another sea breeze, a lot heavier on the breeze than previously. "Yeah, now how did I know that was gonna be your answer?" 

"Selective amnesia." Spike tapped his head. "Must be all those years of havin' my head banged into walls."

* 

Only faintly, but pleasantly, buzzed by Lorne's kind offerings of the club's bar, Spike stepped out of his taxi at the entrance of a used car lot that rivalled the lesser casinos of the strip. A few more luxury cars sold, and the joint might rival big casinos. It was, Spike decided, the work of a mind with more desire for attention than subtlety. A mind that really went in for the 'more is better' philosophy of colour.

It had to be the right place.

The fact that a green-skinned, red-eyed demon in a virulently purple suit was approaching him was purely confirmation.

"Kevin!" the demon called, hailing one of the employees shark-circling the lot. "Dance the Dance of Customer Welcome for Mr. Spike!" 

To Spike's vague amazement, the employee began an odd sort of sideways shuffle back and forth interspersed with grand gestures that reminded him disturbingly of the jewel and evening gown-wearing prize ladies on old game shows, whatever they'd been called. 

They'd usually been blonde.

And a good deal slimmer than Kevin, whose rolls were dancing the dance of doughnut enjoyment all on their own. 

It was almost mesmerizing.

He came to himself to find his hand encased in Numfar's enthusiastic handshake.

"Welcome, Mr. Spike. I am Numfar of the Deathwok Clan. Krevlornswath has spoken well of you!" He released Spike's hand to gesture expansively to the lot. "And more importantly, he has signed the blank cheque with which you are to purchase your heart's desire from these, my most humble offerings." Numfar looked Spike up and down. "And if you don't mind my saying, sir, you have the look of a man who appreciates speed, and sportiness, but class--perhaps something in a classic convertible?"

Spike eyed the familiar long black lines of a classic Cadillac with distaste. "Perhaps not. I was actually thinkin' something more along the lines of... big, ugly, and powerful."

"Mr. Spike, I guarantee you, we have just the thing." 

 

5.

Spike had endured the Dance of Customer Appreciation, and then the utterly show-and-brain-stopping Dance of Cash Up Front, Paid In Full, which had turned out to be a production number involving what looked like the lot of Numfar's employees from secretaries to mechanics performing in what might have been synchronized shuffling and hopping.

It had reminded Spike for one horrifying instant of Sweet's time in Sunnydale and spilling his heart to a Slayer with that poncy musical number. 

But it had all gotten him a monster of an SUV likely to get him where he was going, roads be damned, and give him a place to sleep into the bargain. And a place for Wesley to sleep, strapped in, tied down, and looking reasonably comfortable for a man strapped to a chair.

Spike's mind began a slow slide and skitter along the 'strapped down' vein before he reigned himself in and hauled himself back. 

Car lust. Right. Twelve cylinders wasn't bad either. Especially when he didn't have to pay for a single one of them.

Spike grimaced. He really should have added petrol money to his list of demands. He wondered if Lorne could be convinced that Wesley had demanded the dosh himself.

He supposed he could always steal it. Of course, having a soul could be a bugger in cases like that, but it all probably evened out when the theft was for a life or death matter.

And if it didn't, the Powers That Be had already made it more or less clear that he was buggered on the Heaven and Hell front no matter what he did. 

Well, excepting that helping the helpless and becoming human thing, but--

Spike shuddered, remembering all too vividly being human. 

At least when wankers laughed at him as a vampire, he could feed them their own tongues.

No thanks. Angel could have that one. If he hadn't signed it away pretending to be evil in an utterly failed gambit to do good. In fact, Angel was looking more and more like the poster boy for why Spike should pencil time in for a spot of wickedness every bleedin' day. Maybe the Powers would leave him alone then.

Spike hoped his greed at Numfar's outweighed any good deeds he might do Wesley in the course of getting him where he was going. 

On further consideration, Spike decided that stealing money for petrol was definitely the way to go, just to be on the safe side.

So was getting out of town before Numfar sent the receipt.

He checked Wesley's restraints one last time, running a finger under the edges to be certain nothing was digging in uncomfortably. "Alright, mate?" He kept his voice low, part of him disturbed that he'd fallen back so easily into that pattern of comforting he'd learned taking care of Dru, especially near the end. "Nothing gonna chafe?"

"Mmm," Wesley said with a happy little half giggle appended to the end, and Spike decided it would have to do.

"Be back as soon as I've told Lorne we're getting out of here. Go back to sleep, mate."

"Hmm," Wesley agreed, eyes fluttering closed as he drifted back off, a vague smile on his face, fingers wrapped possessively around the IV line. Spike doubted that it would continue to be this easy once the morphine wore off.

Best hurry it along. "We're off then," he said, breezing through Lorne's living room and snagging his duster on the pass-by.

"Already? S' after midnight. You gonna be able to get anywhere by dawn?"

Spike shrugged. "Not planning on immolation any time soon, mate. Your brother kindly provided a nice big box for the vampire and a few pillows for the patient."

"You know where you're gonna go?"

"Boston eventually, right? Then London. Lots of ways to get there." Spike lifted a shoulder, let it fall, and looked around the Vegas-soaked room that couldn't be further from London, metaphorically, at least. "Don't plan to take the obvious route all the way if I pick up any hints we're bein' followed."

"Probably a good idea." Lorne addressed his words to the pink tinged ice in his glass. "One more thing, muffin." 

"Yeah?"

Red eyes dragged their way up from the glass to fix on his. "Sing somethin'."

"Answer's still no, mate." 

"Just for me, okay. I'm gonna sit here and get grey hairs if you don't give me a clue--and Pyleans don't _get_ grey hairs." 

Spike hesitated. "Are you sure you really wanna know?" A flash of all the things that could go wrong. Of all the things that could go hideously wrong. And all the things that would develop whole new levels of wrong to horrify him for years later during the long damp days in his crypt. Cause it was surviving, not dying, that was the real bitch when it came to horror. "You could send us off and wash your hands of the whole thing"

"...yeah. But I'm not gonna." Lorne gave Spike a helpless sort of half shrug. "It'll eat at me unless I get some kinda hint."

"On one condition."

"Name it, sweetie. Right now, you name it, and it's yours."

Spike spared a moment for another brief thought about petrol funding, but abandoned it in the face of something more crucial. "I'll sing, but you're not gonna tell me what you get out of it."

"Uh--that's not such a great idea-"

"I'm not the one with great ideas, just the bloke who's not singing a bloody note until you agree. I don't want to know my future. Prophecies, predictions--they don't do a bleeding thing other than keeping a man paranoid. So you promise--you promise, and you keep to it, and then I sing." Spike fixed Lorne with his best, most utterly serious glare, and suppressed a shudder at just how dearly he didn't want to know what the future had in store for him if the past was anything to go by.

"Then I got a condition of my own."

"Name it."

"You give Wesley the choice of knowing if he wants to know."

"Wesley is asleep in his seatbelt, or possibly talking to the dust devils outside his window," Spike said, trying for sarcasm, but ending up with something more akin to the wistful affection he usually reserved for his Dru's madness. 

"Once he's coherent." Lorne pulled out a notepad, scribbling down his contact information, and pushed it across the table to Spike. "You give him that and tell him that if he wants to know what I saw listening to you, he can call."

"Hold on a mo' there, mate! I don't want you breathin' a _word_ of my private future to anyone else."

"Only what affects him." Lorne held up his hands, open and empty in surrender. "Only what affects him cause he's got a right to know, shortcakes."

"One more condition before I sing Lorne?"

"Yeah?"

"Never call me that again."

 

6.

"Y'know, mate, if you don't wake up before we hit the coast, we're all in luck." Spike slowed briefly to let a semi slide past, and stole a glance at his dazed passenger, remembering a time when the seats of cars didn't have arms and he'd have to hold an unconscious passenger half in his lap to keep her safe. "A break for you not havin' to worry, a break for me not havin' to force you, like, and a break for the cops not havin' to pull over a pissed off vampire."

Wesley rolled his head against the glass.

Spike nodded sagely. "Yeah, that's the right of it, innit?" Briefly, he wondered if it were a sign of his own madness that he fell this easily into the pattern of one-sided conversations with an ailing passenger, never mind the protective arm that shot out across Wesley's chest every time he had to hit the brakes. Muscle memory. 'S all.

Some habits just didn't die, and taking care of invalids, it appeared, was one of them.

"Figure we'll stop for the day in a couple of hours. There's s'posed to be a camp ground up there somewhere, and bound to be a few places for artery-clogging numminess along the way, don't you think? Think you can get down a burger for Spike?"

"Mnn."

Extending an arm across Wesley before changing lanes, Spike left his hand there to feel his companion's breathing and heartbeat. Both speeding up a bit then. Should be able to eat a bit before the next dose tonight. "If you're a good boy, I'll share my onion things. But you're not gettin' the bleedin' golden arches shit again. What sort of fast food joint doesn't have deep fried onion bits on the menu? And we're not even gettin' started on the bloody great clown out front. Gives me the shivers and I've got a hundred plus years of evil behind me here." 

"And, you know, all the jokes that cholesterol-laden blood will turn a vamp off? Don't you believe them. Time was, those foods you all treat like poison these days were the cuisine of the richest, and a fat waistline meant a tender piece of healthy throat. No malingering for that sort, just a quick dropping dead of heart attack and high blood pressure. Bit of a treat for the right sort of vamp--the poor ones living off of field scraps and stew were tough and anaemic." 

He glanced over at Wesley during a particularly empty stretch of freeway. "Take more than that to keep me from doing something stupid. Takes a soul. And then it's just a whole different kind of stupid." His hand was half way to smoothing a curl from Wesley's face when he snatched it back and planted it firmly on the wheel, reminding himself that his passenger, when awake, was neither helpless nor necessarily such agreeable company.

Keeping both hands planted firmly on the wheel, Spike turned his eyes on the road, figuring it good for perhaps five minutes' respite from boredom, humming under his breath, then chuckling, and singing aloud, hoping to exorcise the song from his mind. "London calling, see we ain't got no highs--Except for that one with the yellowy eyes." So much for five minutes. "Almost written for me this time, mate, you reckon? What with the zombies of death and yellowy eyes bit."

"Mm. Not a zombie." The mumble was so rough and slurred, Spike almost didn't catch it. "And the yellowy eyes are likely referring to the jaundice of alcoholism and cirrhosis of the liver. Cirrhosis--it's a funny word, don't you think?" Wesley apparently found it to be so as it had him giggling quietly to himself, repeating it in different tones of voice. "Alcoholics. Perhaps it was written for me instead."

"Knew that, but you're not a zombie either," Spike said, as if the gleeful, quiet, mumbling were absolutely normal, but Wesley's eyes had once more closed, and Spike caught a murmur about cows that he was fairly sure had nothing to do with the previous conversation. "...Wes? They put something in the tea back at the Watchers Academy, didn't they?" Had to. Only explanation for the buggers all needing to flex their great big brains even when said brains were half a step from leaking out their ears. Chuckling, he backed himself up a few lines to sing again "...but when we were talking, I saw you nodding out. Eh, Wes? Still think it was written for you, not me?"

When Wesley seemed too far gone at the moment to answer, Spike appropriated Wesley's accent. "Of course it wasn't really written for either of us, Spike. I highly doubt the members of the Clash boasted a seer, much less a seer tuned in to our particular futures."

"Shows what you know, mate," Spike continued in his own accent. "Inspired a song or two in my time, and wouldn't you like to know who by." 

Muffled mumble, and possibly a snicker. "Billy Idol."

Spike's lips quirked. "Well, yeah, fair enough but that was an easy one." He gentled his voice, absently reaching across and rubbing Wesley's hand where it lay against his thigh. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up once I've got something for you to eat."

"Yes, mum."

"Hope that was residual English sarcasm, mate, cause I wouldn't say I look anything like your mum. Better not, anyhow."

Wesley's eyes remained unfocused, and after a brief quiet spate of laughter, answered, his words slurred. "My mother looked like Lydia."

"Huh? Lydia who?" Spike felt a little jolt of displeasure flash through him. "You got a bint on the side you never mentioned to us, Wes?" When there was no answer other than a vague hum, Spike frowned and shifted his grip on the steering wheel before it could creak under pressure. "Dunno any Lydia at Wolfram and Hart, so unless you've been keepin' more secrets than we knew or found yourself a little Florence Nightingale in Vegas..."

"She's a Watcher."

"Your mum, then?"

"Lydia."

Spike blinked, and examined the vague memory nagging at him beneath the irrationally possessive jealousy, trying to place 'Lydia' and 'Watcher' into the same context.

Wesley's lips curved at the corners with what might have been smugness or even mischief if he were in his right mind. "We all wanted her--and she only had eyes for you. Did her thesis on you."

Memory slid neatly into place of well-tailored tweed, sharp glasses, and an immaculate face blushing like a schoolgirl, and he laughed, a nameless relief sliding through his dead veins. "Oh. Yeah. Met her once in me crypt when the Council came along to interview us all for the Slayer's progress reports-" Spike stopped as the rest of the conversation filtered through his mind. "You wanted a woman who looked just like your mum?"

"She was lovely," Wesley said, drifting off again, and Spike shook his head. 

"It's an English thing, innit? Sometimes, I think it's got to be. Enough to make a bloke thankful he never met his own Da, I'll tell you, even if Angelus filled that role neat as you please. A fellow only needs one father to traumatize him for life, eh, Wes?"

"Oh, no, thank you. I've enough," Wesley murmured vaguely, breath fogging the window.

"Bet you do, mate. Got enough Father troubles for both of us." Spike reached across once more and lay his cool hand over Wesley's warm fingers, just for a bit of advance warning if he woke, of course, so Wes'd know he was there. 

 

7.

Spike threw himself back into the driver's seat with a snort of disgust, tossing a CD case from his duster to the dashboard and glaring at it as if it personally offended him by the mere fact of its existence.

It did.

"I ask you, Wes, what sort of music store has only one recording of London Calling, and that one on a bleedin' girlie soundtrack? God. Anyone saw me lifting this, I'd never be able to show my face in there again."

Wesley rolled his head against the window until he could see Spike. "I dare say." His voice was both more steady, and more pained, and he held himself with absolute stillness.

Spike frowned, leaving the CD where it lay and shuffling onto his knees in the floor space between the driver's seat and Wesley, peeling up the side of his shirt to expose Wesley's wound. More pink yet than red, no inflammation... smelled normal enough. But he had to ask. "You hurting again?" His voice came out low, gentle, and utterly unlike anyone who'd stroll into a music store and steal a copy of 'What A Girl Wants' for the sake of a single song. 

Wesley's hand rested over Spike's, stilling it, and Spike was relieved to find the skin warm and dry, a far cry from the cold clamminess of previous days. "It's been worse. It's bearable."

Spike shook his head. "We've got a full supply of everything you need to fly to the moon. No need to conserve." He let go of Wesley, shuffling under the seat for the box of supplies Lorne had provided him, but stopped when an unsteady hand gripped his arm. 

"No," Wesley said.

"Huh?"

"No, Spike. No more morphine." Wesley laid his head back against the seat, his eyes too glazed for such a firm voice.

"Uh, mate, the trip's not gonna be a joy ride without your painkiller." _Your sedative, more like._ Spike wished, suddenly, that Lorne had given him more details on how long it took Wesley to realize his disability and what kind of upset to expect. It was nothing he couldn't handle, he was sure, seeing as he'd made a point of not putting any stakes in the vehicle, but he didn't fancy fending away a brassed off Watcher while going ninety down the interstate.

"Then we're going to stop at a chemists and pick up a bottle of something. If it's good enough for a toothache, it will have to do for me." Wesley closed his eyes, but his hand remained where he'd put it, weakly gripping Spike's wrist.

"What's the matter?" Spike asked, letting Wesley's fingers shift over his skin, warm over cold. "Don't trust me at the wheel all of a sudden?" Gently asked. Sometimes teasing out an answer worked better than asking directly. 

Fingers squeezed faintly. "I trust you entirely at the wheel, Spike--it isn't as if I could do better in my condition, and you do have far more experience behind the wheel than I'll ever be able to claim. But I assume that we'll be flying to London?"

"Unless you wanna swim."

"No, thank you." What might have been a smile twitched over Wesley's features. In order to board our flight, I will need to appear entirely sober. I won't be able to do so while suffering withdrawals--which should reach their peak between one and a half and three days after my last dose." At last, Wesley's hand slipped away, but Spike caught it in his own, loathe to give up the warm touch just yet.

_Soul hasn't made me any less greedy at least._ But Spike was gratified that Wesley didn't try to pull away. "Withdrawals?"

"If the last time is a guide, there will be primarily muscle cramps, nausea, and chills. Possibly insomnia, which I do not believe will be a problem under these circumstances." Wesley considered. "As we're in somewhat of a hurry, you may do well to purchase some anti-nausea medication as well. Or a bucket."

Spike quickly added the anti-nausea pills to his mental shoplifting list. "Best be going then. I'd like to see the other side of Omaha before sunrise, and you'd best get yourself some more rest." Reluctantly, Spike released Wesley's hand, letting it slip through his fingers in what might have been a caress if he were permitting himself that sort of girly word, and returned to his seat. "See if I can't get some pills to stay in you before the withdrawals hit."

Wesley's lips curved upwards in a wry expression, and his tone was absolutely resigned. "Thank you, Spike. I do appreciate it."

"Don't make me out all altruistic here," Spike said, but without the thick layers of defence he might have worn in the pre-soul days. "I'm the one who'd have to empty the bucket, mate."

As he drove, he found himself missing the warm touch, but thankful for the company. And avoiding every possible bump and pothole in the road. "All right there, Wes?"

"It's been worse."

"Not what I asked." Spike gave Wesley his best 'don't kid me, mate' look, and lifted a sceptical eyebrow.

Wesley sighed. "I'll have to be all right, won't I? Let's talk about something else."

"Right," Spike said, before finding himself uncharacteristically out of words. It had been much easier alone with the giggling and incapacitated Wesley. Funny, that, when holding both sides of the conversation was easier than holding only one. "So what happened?"

"When?"

"The night it all went to hell. Got Lorne's story, but that's what--third hand and through Big Blue." Possibly, Spike admitted to himself, not the most tactful question to ask, but at least Wesley didn't seem put out by it. "Far as the rest of us knew, you were dead and all."

"No. It takes... quite some time to die of the sort of wound I sustained, four hours on average. I won't deny that death was on my mind at the time, but the worst I suffered just then was a loss of consciousness." Wesley had fixed Spike with a more intent look, and shifted in his seat with a faint grimace. "Was there one particular moment for you?"

Spike thought back to his mission that night, the squirming _helpless_ warmth in his arms, fighting his way out... "Moment? Well, it was touch and go carryin' a baby through a fight like that, but-" 

"No," Wesley interrupted, eyes focused sharply on him despite their lingering narcotic sheen. "One moment when you knew you were going to die. When you were human."

A peculiar little ache fluttered in Spike's dead chest and he lifted a shoulder. "I was a poet, wasn't I? Wasn't any time I didn't think I'd die in some terribly romantic and hopefully tragic way."

"But when it happened-"

"When it happened," Spike said, the ache flitting like a trapped moth within as he remembered that wild mix of fear, awe, and heart-stopping arousal he'd felt when Drusilla's fangs penetrated his skin, "I mostly wasn't thinking at all."

Wesley fell silent then, looking out the window with faint frown lines between his brows. "I think I was looking forward to it this time."

The vehicle swerved as Spike looked at Wesley sharply, and cursed as the ex-Watcher turned pale, one hand pressing lightly against his scar. "Sorry, mate," Spike muttered. "So... you still lookin' forward to it?"

At that, Wesley turned away from the window to watch Spike in a silence that got under Spike's skin and crawled around there before an answer came. "No," Wesley said pensively. "It's odd, but I don't find myself looking forward to anything."

Spike found himself looking narrowly at Wesley, the fluttering in his chest growing more agitated, nagging at him with an emotion he finally managed to put a name to--anger. Which was far more acceptable than the sinking disappointment that accompanied it. "I'm not havin' you off yourself on my watch, mate." Anger was easy. 

"What?" Wesley stared back, the vagueness of confusion plain on his face. "Oh. No." His lips twisted faintly. "I don't believe that will become an issue."

"No?" Spike couldn't keep the suspicion from his voice, and tried to hold onto the sharpness of cautious anger, frustrated when it drained away in the face of Wesley's absolute calm.

"No," Wesley said firmly.

"Convince me." Spike did not release the tightness of his grip on the steering wheel, though the tone of his words mellowed into a quiet order.

Silence stretched between them as Wesley watched consideringly, lips pursed in thought. "To wish to die, I would need to feel very strongly about something." One too-delicate hand pressed against Wesley's chest, and he pinned Spike with an empty look. "I feel nothing at all."

 

8.

When Spike crawled out of his box the next evening, Wesley was already awake, or maybe still awake, Spike amended, catching a good look at the pale, drawn face in the yellowed glow of the map light. "All right, mate?"

"Still breathing," Wesley said, and pointed into the stand of trees before them at the rest stop. "There's been three drug buys, seven blow jobs, and one prostitution sting, all in broad daylight. On a Wednesday, if the deejay's not been smoking anything odd in the studio." Wesley gestured to the softly playing radio.

"Better than telly. You been up keeping count then?"

Red-rimmed eyes turned on Spike at last in an utterly expressionless face. "Couldn't sleep."

Looking Wesley over from ruffled hair to rumpled clothes with a detour over the clammy pallor of Wesley's faded California tan, Spike nodded. "Yeah, you look it."

"Oh, thank you."

Spike snorted, and then on impulse, dipped into memory. "Evil here."

"Aren't you supposed to be protesting you're good now that you have a soul?" Wesley's lips quirked, and he relaxed against the seat so minutely that Spike almost missed the change. 

"Nah--too last year. Plenty of souled evil out there, and what's being good get you anyhow?" Spike slid into the driver's seat and twisted to pop the cooler latch, snagging a blood bag and grimacing at the cold. 

"Life," Wesley answered promptly, one tremoring hand taking the bag from Spike and laying it on the dash, reaching forward to turn on window defrost. "To warm," he explained. 

Spike lifted a scarred eyebrow at this, wondering if that'd been Wesley's idea or if Angel'd finally mastered the dine-and-dash of the souled and his Watcher'd picked up on it. "Life," he repeated, deciding it was easier to just wait for warm blood and ignore the whys of the warming process. "Yeah, and Angel can have it."

"Not anymore." Wesley folded his hands over his stomach, fingers laced together like houses of sticks over his wound. 

"That's his problem, mate. I don't want it." Even Spike heard the belligerence in his tone.

For all the reaction it got him from Wesley, he may as well not have bothered speaking at all as the ex-Watcher only lifted an eyebrow and turned back to the darkened windshield. "Why don't you want it?" 

"Cause it's weak, and messy, and all you've got to look forward to is growing weaker and messier as you age. And speaking of messy, you'd best take care of any business that needs doing before I pull out of here. Wanna get as far from the nearest bloody cornfield as I can before sun up."

"I could drive during the day."

Spike gave Wesley the longest, most assessing look-over in his repertoire and smirked. "Yeah, you look fit for a long day's driving."

Irritably, Wesley wrenched open the passenger door and eased himself to the ground on unsteady legs. "I've driven in far worse states than this, Spike."

This time, Spike's assessment was less show, more concern, and he let out an unnecessary sigh. "Yeah, I do actually believe you, Wes. But we're not in so much hurry I'm gonna make you drive when you can't even stand. Hold on a mo'." He slid from the driver's seat and around to Wesley's side of the vehicle, steadying him with an arm around his waist. "C'mon."

"I don't need help," Wesley said, though without the irritation. 

"Maybe," Spike said, "but I need to help you. So shut up and lemme do it."

"Due to the soul?"

"Nah. Due to me being a sad wanker and a soft touch. C'mon. Let's get this done and get out of here." 

* 

After returning to the road, what conversation there'd been before, however vague, or irritable, had dried up, leaving the two of them in silence, punctuated only by the occasional rattle of Wesley's seatbelt as a shudder passed through him and his scent became more sour with cold sweat and withdrawal.

A lone offer of food had been met with heaves, curses, and a hastily grabbed bucket that effectively put an end to even Spike's idle monologue for hours.

Outer monologue, at least, as his mental voice ran on unchecked and made note of every shiver, every tremor, every shake, and the exact colour of lips and skin. Again, he found himself missing the old DeSoto and a body to hold as he drove. Some kind of comfort--something. 

Shortly before dawn, Spike pulled abruptly off the expressway and into a town, driving straight for neon. 

"What do you think you're doing?" Wesley's voice came out harsh, but with an underlying current of weakness, sickness. As if Spike couldn't smell it long before he'd heard it. Certainly wasn't going to change his decision after it. 

"Getting us a motel room for the night."

"No."

"No would imply we're not getting a motel room."

"We're not."

"Actually, yeah, we are. And if you try to leave it in the middle of the day, I'll break your legs before you're out the door."

For a moment, Wesley looked as if he was drawing himself up to fight, but then turned ashen and slumped against the door again, eyes skittering back out into the deep blues of pre-dawn. "We shouldn't, Spike. It leaves Wolfram and Hart more of a trail to follow."

Spike shrugged. "Dunno, Wes. Way I understand it, they were never more than a maybe and I haven't caught a whiff of being followed. Don't you think they'd have tried something by now? I haven't exactly been takin' the back roads."

"I thought you were supposed to protect me."

"I am. Gotta know what I'm protecting you from before I can protect you from it, don't I?" Spike shrugged, pulling over beneath sodium yellow and fire truck red signs. "And right now, I'm protecting you from another day sitting up in the passenger seat staring at the seedy underbelly of rest stops. Cause if Wolfram and Hart are out to squash us like bugs, they're doing a piss poor job of carrying it out."

"I don't understand why they wouldn't-"

"Obvious, innit?" Pocketing the keys, Spike turned in his seat, elbows resting on his knees as he regarded Wesley curiously, some part of him surprised that the Watcher had never caught on to it. 

"Pretend it isn't, Spike, and walk me through it." 

"Not much to walk through." Spike shrugged. "All they ever cared about was Angel. The rest of us are just window dressing."

"They cared about Angel because of the Shanshu prophecy. That should have transferred to you now."

"Nah. Cause, see, I don't want grand redemption--and I'm not cut out for helping the hopeless. The way I see it, I haven't got anything I need to redeem myself for now."

"One hundred plus years as a brutal killer?"

Spike sighed, and fought, briefly, with the urge to roll his eyes. "One hundred plus years as a natural predator hunting its intended prey," he corrected, fixing Wesley with his most direct stare. "Got perspective now. I never went in for mind games an' puppy killing like Angelus. I was just doing exactly what I was made for the way I was meant to do it."

"You stopped."

"Well, yeah. Soul makes us a bit more human. Changes things."

"Are you saying that you view yourself as a somewhat anaemic human now?"

"Not hardly! But I'm not quite a vamp anymore, am I? And the way I see it, if burning up with that piece of costume jewellery and saving the bloody world in the process didn't count as atonement for whatever sins I had on the book, it's just too much sodding effort to figure out what does. There's only so many hoops a bloke can jump without losing himself in them."

"Like Angel."

"Yeah." Spike wrenched his door open, taking a deep, if unnecessary breath of the Midwest and promptly lighting up. "Like Angel. And one of him's plenty for any world." 

As he circled the vehicle to help Wesley down from his seat, Spike waited for an objection, a defence of Angel, and was only mildly surprised when neither came.

 

9.

Settling back on a too-hard mattress that was still better than a camp bed or a stone slab, Spike drew deeply on his cigarette, blowing the smoke at the ceiling and watching it curl, a spot of calm sharing space with Wesley's restless shifting in the other bed. "Cigarette bothering you, mate?" 

"No. It's fine."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Why should anything be wrong?" Wesley's tone was empty despite its sharpness. Not that it'd been brimming before, but now, it was a tone that sounded as if it should have tumbleweeds rolling across it in desolation.

"Oh, no reason. Maybe because you've got access to a nice comfy bed, a shower, a telly, and four walls, but you're flopping around instead of sleeping like a good little boy, watching the news like a proper Watcher, or showering like a human being sharing a room with a vampire's highly developed sense of smell," he added, unable not to poke at Wesley's unnatural apathy.

"It's called withdrawal, Spike. I don't feel steady enough to shower yet, and I'd rather stink than earn myself another concussion."

"Oh, ha ha. I can smell that too, you know. The withdrawal's not givin' you much grief at the moment." A large part of Spike was fairly certain that the new irritable blankness had more to do with Wesley being unable to read the numbers on the room key--or the numbers on the doors--or the room service menu than with any unpleasant physical effects. "Listen, tell you what I'll do--we'll compromise. You bathe, and I'll make sure you don't knock your head while doing it."

"I wouldn't want to offend you with my odor," Wesley said with enough neutrality that Spike gave him a narrow look, unable to quite determine whether it was politeness or sarcasm. 

He decided that politeness would better suit his purposes and shoved himself upright, putting out his cigarette. "Too bloody right. Now get your kit off. Shower'll make you feel more like a man and less like a slab of brining meat. Should be enough water left after for a good soak--figure you're as healed up as you're likely to be, and it can't do any more harm."

"You're going to soak me to make me feel as if I'm not being brined?"

Spike gave Wesley a long look. "You: strip. I'm gonna see what passes for hot water here."

The hot water turned out to be pleasantly scalding, and as tempted as Spike was to simply fill the tub as hot as it'd go and soak himself until he felt almost alive, he turned on both taps instead and left the bathroom to fill with steam as he went to fetch his charge.

Who was once more lying on the bed, unselfconsciously naked save for the one hand that rested over his scar, and the other that rested over his heart. _Protecting his heart. Right. God. Is becoming a poof requisite with the soul?_ Stomping just a little harder than necessary, Spike crossed the room to loom over Wesley. 

"Lookin' like I should have gotten you a double cheese with bacon instead of just the single for dinner." Spike looked Wesley over appraisingly, noting each sharp protrusion of bone with disapproval, and the symmetry of the two injuries marring Wesley's belly over a lace-work of lesser scars. "You Watchers--they have you specialize in one kind of wound back at the Academy before letting you out into the wild?"

Wesley simply stared blankly back at Spike. "I have no idea what you mean."

Spike gestured to his own stomach, right, then left. "Rupert always got hit in the head. The man was a concussion waiting for an excuse to happen. An' you got yourself an impressive set of gut wounds there." He offered a hand for Wesley, trying to inject a sense of impatience to the offer. 

"Two hardly makes a collection," Wesley said dryly, taking Spike's hand and gingerly pulling himself up and keeping tight hold of the steadying fingers in his grip. 

"Does if you count the little ones." Spike couldn't quite resist another look, now that the entire collection was revealed. Where'd they come from?"

"Mistakes," Wesley answered shortly, and despite the tremors of his body, straightened his back until Spike's spine ached with sympathy.

Shaking his head, Spike took Wesley's arm more firmly, holding on until the tension eased under the force of a particularly nasty tremor, and said, "Any scar you survived isn't a mistake, mate. It's a badge."

"It's a mistake when your own error is what caused it to happen," Wesley said more mildly, or maybe tiredly.

Spike shrugged. "So? This one," he gestured to his eyebrow, "I got when I should've ducked a Slayer's sword and didn't, but hey, I'm still here, and she's been dust for a good century. Not gonna call that a mistake. So try me."

Stopping in the bathroom door only to lean against the frame, Wesley lifted a hand, placing it over the older gut wound. "Ran at an armed zombie policeman without a weapon of my own."

"Yeah, but why? The why's important."

"He was going to shoot Charles."

"There. See? Not a mistake. Perfectly honourable wound, that one." 

"But not a badge. Not impressive or honourable. I simply threw myself into the line of fire."

Spike felt his lips quirking. "Mate, I've been doing that for over a hundred years. Hasn't lost its appeal for me yet. Somebody's gotta throw himself over the grenade for the good of the men."

"And you died doing it on the Hellmouth."

"Not dead anymore, am I? Not more than usual, any rate." The quirk bloomed into a full grin, and Spike let go of Wesley long enough to strip off, tossing each piece of clothing out into the little hallway and shutting the bathroom door. "You're pretty fixated on what you did wrong, aren't you?"

Spike found himself vaguely put out that Wesley didn't even try to steal a look. Wasn't as if he'd let himself go over the years like some vamps. "And you never so much as let it cross your mind," Wesley responded, as if they were having tea rather than standing naked together in the bathroom of a cheap motel somewhere east of Chicago. 

Memories of a summer spent saving a Slayer in a hundred new ways every night flooded Spike's mind, distancing small slights and wounded pride before he packed them tightly back down where they belonged, focusing instead on clammy skin under his hands as he helped Wesley step over the rim of the tub and into the shower. "You've been listening to Angel talk about me too long," he said. 

"What makes you say that?" As if he weren't standing under the spray, held upright by a vampire, and badly in need of a haircut. 

Spike mentally shrugged, and set to lathering soap and cloth, businesslike. "Only the brooding one would've pegged me as bein' that shallow. The right things--the important things--those, I don't let go of. Never have."

Wesley allowed himself to be moved like a mannequin, his eyes remaining open and fixed on Spike's face rather than his hands. "What could be more important than defeating the Senior Partners' active arm?"

"Doing it with a prayer of success," Spike answered immediately, tilting his chin defensively and bracing for the disagreement even as he lifted Wesley's other arm to repeat the process after returning for more soap, pleased to see the skin turning pink under his ministrations.

"Doing the impossible, then," Wesley said. 

Spike tilted his head, pausing with the soap in one hand, cloth in the other and meeting Wesley's eyes again. "Well, yeah. Though not everything worth hanging on to is impossible."

"For instance?"

"Keeping the bit alive long enough to become a bite," Spike said.

"Not burning up in the Hellmouth and saving the world?"

"That's on the list too." Spike shrugged, flashing a smug look Wesley's way before easing him back under the spray to rinse. "Didn't want to be predictable, did I?"

"Never," Wesley said, though he didn't smile at that either, or move his gaze. 

"Yeah. Lean up against there, right?"

"Spike, I can wash myself," Wesley said, finally, though his tug away from Spike was half-hearted.

"Uh huh. But what you're gonna do is keep holdin' onto that railing there while I do it for you." Spike shook the cheap bar soap at Wesley as if it were a threat on its own. "Don't need to be embarrassed around me, mate. Seen a bit more than a few scraps of flesh in a hundred and twenty five years," he said, and then, with a small, sly, and irresistible smile, and a sudden revelation over Wesley's sharp and ongoing focus on his face added. "And you can look if you want, Wes. Got no secrets, got no shame here. Not anymore."

"Oh, I'm not embarrassed. But it's nothing I've not seen before."

"You sure about that?" Spike's smirk turned briefly into a mischievous smile as he knelt on the floor of the tub, cloth skimming from Wesley's chest to his belly, more gentle now. "Now hold onto the rail so I don't have to worry about catching you on the way down."

There was soap and lather and warm falling water over pale and pallid skin as Spike worked meticulously and with just enough professional detachment to conceal how bloody _nice_ it was just to be touching a living human being again.

He could allow himself to be just a little selfish. Just that way.

Because, with his eyes closed at last, and head down, in the quiet of the shower, Wesley didn't appear to mind. 

And when a warm hand came to rest on Spike's shoulder instead of the rail, he smiled. 

Before leaning down to shut off the taps at last, Spike wrapped an arm around Wesley's waist, dead skin momentarily almost as warm as the living. "We'll let this drain out, then give you a long soak. Sound right to you?"

Wesley only hummed, a tired sound just under his breath, and lay his cheek against Spike's shoulder where his hand had been. "You're warm," he said vaguely, a faint note of surprise colouring the words. "I've never felt a warm vampire before." 

"Yeah," Spike agreed, ignoring the little twist in his belly that wondered how much of a vampire he'd felt before and didn't like it. "Shower'll do that for us. For a little while."

"It's nice," Wesley said, eyes closing as he drifted towards sleep still standing in Spike's embrace. "And you're right--hadn't seen it all." 

"Have now. You're lucky I'm stubborn, mate. Didn't drive you all this way only to have you drown in the bath, and you get a free show into the bargain," Spike said, ignoring the thread of tenderness he could hear in his tone, or the hint of a suggestion in Wesley's. 

"It's nice," Wesley said again, eyes still closed, and Spike could swear the shift of Wesley's fingers over the small of his back had been a caress. 

 

10.

Spike watched the successfully un-drowned and unmolested Wesley sleep, the comforters and blankets of both beds piled over him and pulled up around his ears to retain what warmth from the bath he could. The riot of long since dry bed-head curls that were all Spike could see from the chair so Spike watched the television from his stripped bed where he could see Wesley's face.

Wesley's incredibly peaceful sleeping face.

Still.

At sunset. 

Too bloody peaceful to wake up for another long drive. 

With a sigh, Spike snagged the in-room telephone and dialled the front desk, booking them for a second night, then settling in to a long night of talk telly, and if he was lucky, a good rerun or three.

He was watching a couple with fourteen teeth between them argue over custody of their dogs when Wesley finally woke. "It's night," he said, hoarse still with sleep.

"Yeah. Noticed," Spike said, answering hoarse with gentle.

"We should be driving." Wesley struggled under the covers until he could see Spike more clearly, and battled a hand free of the blankets to rub at his face.

"Nah." Spike stubbed out the last of his cigarette, nudging the ash tray further from Wesley until its smoke no longer curled in his direction. "You looked like you needed the sleep, mate."

Wesley shook his head, trying to sit up, a frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows. "I can sleep in the car."

"Real bed's better for you," Spike said as neutrally as he was able, wondering if they were all bred this stubbornly stupid in England these days or if it was a Watchers Academy special.

"Wolfram and Hart-"

Spike sighed, losing the last of his pathetic reserves of patience. "Let's face it, Wes--they're not lookin' for us. No hurry. No rush." He pulled out the last cigarette in the pack, looked at it, looked at Wesley, then sighed and put it back, laying it on the table along with his Zippo. Right. No hurry. 

"I'd rather be driving." Wesley mumbled, though he pulled the covers higher, burrowing into the warmth. 

Spike felt the faint affectionate tugs at whatever passed for vampire heart strings and chuckled. "Cause who wants a nice comfy bed when you could be sleeping upright in a bucket seat at ninety along the expressway, hey?" He'd intended for sarcastic, but had to admit it sounded simply--limp. 

"I don't want to be idle." Wesley trailed off, giving up in mid protest and staring at the ceiling. 

Hoping for a chink, a crack in the armour, or even a good old fashioned bit of leverage, Spike went on. "Give yourself a break, Wes. No demons to slay, no apocalypses to thwart, no prophecies to ferret your way through-" Spike stopped as Wesley flinched violently enough to show through four layers of blanket. "You want to talk about it?"

 

"No."

"Too bad, cause I've got questions." Spike paused, smiling when Wesley couldn't see him. "You gonna fight me on it the way you did in the shower?"

There was a longer pause until Wesley sighed deeply, though he still didn't turn to face Spike. "Probably not."

"See? I always have my way eventually. What'd the doctors say?"

"Severe blood loss due to a rather nasty gut wound," Wesley replied levelly.

"Git. I meant the other thing." 

This time, the silence stretched until Spike began to wonder if Wesley was planning to give him the cold shoulder until he went away. "The medical doctors believe it to be alexia, or word blindness, brought on by minor brain damage due to blood loss. The psychologists believe it to be the result of trauma brought on by something I read. Both believe that learning again from the beginning will cure me."

"Great. And what do you think?"

"Mostly? With over three dozen written languages to re-learn, I don't think about it at all."

"Doesn't seem like you. You're book boy. Stiff upper lip man. Giles junior."

"Don't call me Giles junior. How do you like being called Angel junior?" Wesley gave Spike a calm look to the vampire's expression of offended irritation, then shrugged. "Or perhaps I don't feel like myself lately."

"And perhaps you're hiding behind something because it's easier than facing up to it," Spike answered, mimicking Wesley's accent with greater success than his North London mimicry.

"You won't go away, will you?"

"One of my finest traits, I've been told."

"Now why don't I believe that?"

"Always thought you were a smart bloke." Spike slid across the bed, resting his feet on Wesley's mattress and his elbows on his knees. "Now save us both the trouble and tell me the part you're leaving out."

"The reading isn't all I lost," Wesley said at last, quietly.

"Eh? What then? Pretty sure your body had the usual number of everything when I was goin' over it in the shower."

Wesley didn't look at him, though his heart beat just a little faster. "...I've lost my emotions. Since the moment I woke up, I've been--empty."

"Bollocks," Spike said flatly, obscurely disappointed that it was something so mundane. So incredibly human. He'd expected more. Wesley only stared at him blankly, so Spike went on. "You haven't lost a single bloody emotion, Wesley. You've suffered trauma. You've lost your friends, your lifestyle, and your faith in my great ponce of a grandsire. You're bloody depressed, and if that isn't hinting at emotions, I don't know what sodding well is."

"Anger," Wesley answered promptly. "Which I don't feel, though I should." 

"Why? What's there left to be angry at? Sod-all, that's what."

"Hope, then. I don't feel that either."

"That's not an emotion so much as a mental condition. Not saying it's wrong, but wouldn't say it's an emotion. And I sure as hell wouldn't say you should be feelin' it all over just yet." Spike directed a grand and sweeping gesture to peeling paint and a twenty year old television set.

"What about regret?" This time, Wesley looked at Spike with eyes that held none at all, but a spark of curiosity.

"Mate, I'd say you burned yourself out on that one long before the battle." Spike looked the ex-Watcher over, one more time in appraisal. "Sides, what's to regret? What can you honestly say you'd have done differently? Turn Angel down? Not likely. You'd be feeling all guilty now that you'd left him to face a dragon on his own." Spike shrugged, and then went on more slowly as pieces of Wesley's past and present aligned for him and began to make some sense. "What happened happened, and now you get to deal with it, yeah? You ask me, maybe you only lost the guilt and regret and didn't have room for much else for so long you think the lot's gone and disappeared on you."

"And maybe I am just empty." Wesley let one hand fall to rest on his chest, over his heart again, Spike noticed, and returned to staring at the ceiling in a blank way Spike found himself not liking at all.

"Then you gotta fill yourself back up." Unable to resist, a sly smile crept over Spike's lips, and he let his eyes slide down Wesley's body. "Could help with that."

Only Wesley's eyes moved towards Spike. "Spike, are you simply being irritating or did you just finally proposition me?"

To his vague surprise, Spike found himself tilting his head to regard Wesley more seriously and answering. "Depends. You want to be propositioned? And what the sodding hell do you mean 'finally'?"

"You haven't been very subtle the way you watch me, Spike. It's only what's written that I've lost the ability to read." Wesley turned his head fully away, and the little spark of hope died in Spike's chest, joining its many likewise deceased mates for another metaphorical pint. 

"Yeah, well..." Spike stood, trailing off and going to his duster, patting through the pockets for a new pack of cigarettes. He wasn't gonna stay around for the 'ew, Spike wants me!' portion of the show this time--heard it all already. On his way to the door, he almost missed Wesley's answer when it finally came. 

"Yes." 

Spike stared at the lump of blankets, processing this single word, attempting to quash the pathetically optimistic portion of his soul without much luck. Hell. It wasn't even love--he knew the difference. But warm skin'd been so bloody _nice_ , and it wasn't as if either of them were likely to have a crisis of sexuality at this point. "You want me to proposition you?" 

Wesley sat up in bed, the many covers bunching at his waist, and though his eyes held the glassy unfocused stare of severe untreated myopia, they fixed on Spike with absolute surety. "I want to feel."

Spike felt his heart fold in on itself, and took a step back. One thing seeking comfort together. But he'd done the being used for personal recovery thing before. "Wes-"

"Please." 

Spike's hands scrubbed slowly over his face, and he felt the pinch of his eyebrows drawing together as if to hold in the tide of memories and the part of him that didn't care what happened tomorrow as long as he got let into that warm bed, warm _body_ tonight. "Mate, that's not a good way to get the feeling back. Goes bad in the end."

"It's better than-"

"Nothing?" Spike asked, listening to the irony coasting on that one word. 

"No. It's better than not trying." Wesley seized Spike's wrist, squeezing more tightly than a human should. "It's... following up on the only feeling I have."

"And when you've got your feelings back and I'm smotherin' you and getting all inconvenient?" Spike asked, tired enough at last to simply ask. _Getting too bloody old to keep dancing the dance._ "Not that I'm thinkin' that far ahead, mind. But I might tomorrow--you don't get guarantees with the likes of me." 

Wesley let go, hand falling back to the mattress limply. "Spike, if you're waiting for me to promise you the everlasting moon and stars, it's not going to happen." 

"I don't expect any of that." Spike felt his belly clench unpleasantly, the heady rush of potential, warmth in his cold life, the possibility of falling in love with someone passable, intelligent, interesting, who already knew what getting involved with a vampire meant and might grow to love him back eventually, all warred with harsh memory, rejection upon rejection, and a Slayer who could never love him back _because_ she knew. 

"You expect something."

"I'm not up for this girlie shit, Wes." Spike pushed himself off the bed, pacing, and whirled on Wesley, finger levelled at him. "You want to shag or don't you?"

"And your concerns?" 

Spike drew himself up. "Are just that--mine. Now. Shag or no shag?" 

"I want to shag." The word sounded harsh, out of place on Wesley's fine accent. He fought his other hand free, bringing it to the back of Spike's neck, and up into the mess of curls he'd forgotten to steal gel for. "And Spike--whatever happens afterwards, we'll deal with afterwards--I'm still that much a gentleman. Right now-"

"Yeah, I know." Spike pushed himself wearily off of his bed, kneeling on the edge of Wesley's mattress before slinging a leg over his hips, straddling him, and after a hesitant moment, laying his hands on Wesley's chest. "Kinda want to feel right now too," he admitted, chin bowing to his sternum briefly before he slid down, breathing a tepid trail over Wesley's flesh, drinking the warmth that swirled around him like an aura.

"Tomorrow?"

Spike held still, lips hovering just above Wesley's pulse, feeling the thrumming of it in the air. "We'll deal with tomorrow," he agreed, and closed his lips over Wesley's heartbeat, so achingly slow, he wasn't sure which of them he was teasing, and shuddered when Wesley let out a hum of pleasure. "Now no more talking 'cept 'ow,' 'don't stop,' and 'more' all right?"

"What about 'oh god, Spike!'?" Wesley asked, mildly, fingers skimming up Spike's back through the thin layer of his tee-shirt, then fanning out over his arms. "Will I be allowed that one?" 

Spike's lips curved over still-human teeth, and he bit just above the collarbone, just long enough and hard enough to leave marks for his tongue to dance over wetly. It took almost no effort for his mind to manufacture the metallic tang of blood in the shallow indentations. His breath left the skin cool as he spoke against it. "Make it convincing, and I'll make you a nice little exception. And give you a reason to use it too."

"How--much convincing does a vampire take?" Wesley's voice broke under a the assault of a hungry tongue exploring the dip in the hollow of his throat, and he arched his head into the pillow. "Don't stop," he said, and Spike felt the smile he couldn't hear, chuckling against Wesley's skin.

"Like that, do you?" 

Wesley's vague shifting became restless, and he slid a leg over Spike's, dragging him down hard with a pleasured gasp, hand clenching and releasing on Spike's hair. "I'll let you know." 

"Yeah, you do that." Unable to resist, Spike buried his nose against the salty heat of Wesley's neck, tasting soap from their shower, and the faint bitterness of opiate, the hint of which curled down into his belly like memories. "Mm... used to feed in the opium dens, me an' Dru, during the Boxer Rebellion." Beneath him, he felt a tremor of cramping muscles, not as pronounced as it had been on the road, but impossible to hide. "Sure you're up to this, pet?" 

"Keep talking." Roughness beneath smooth accent, the faintest scent of pain. "... what was it like? Feeding on them? Feeling that...." Wesley's breath caught on the inhale, and came back out on a groan. "...kind of connection? Power." 

"Why?" 

"Just talk. Tell me what it was like." Wesley's hands passed hotly over Spike's hair, down his neck to knead his back, feeling him like a blind man. His breathing full and open-mouthed, as if drawing him in that way too. 

Spike let him, and lowered his voice, letting it buzz close to Wesley's skin, drinking down the reflected vibrations, his hands restless over Wesley's warmth. "Dark, for one. Weren't much light in the dens." 

Wesley's eyes fluttered closed beneath Spike's words, tongue curling behind parted lips as if tasting the smoky air of Spike's memories. 

"Yeah, like that, Pet," Spike said, feeling a lurch through his dead chest for Wesley's immediate compliance. "You're a good lad for taking direction, aren't you?" Wesley stopped breathing entirely at Spike's words, and Spike followed them with the gentle brush of a hand, fingers over closed eyelids, feeling the lashes tickling at his fingertips, stroking until he could feel breath against his palm again. 

"Maybe a little flicker from the lamps, catchin' the curve of a cheek," the skin over Wesley's cheekbone was rough, dry, but warm, "line of a jaw," and his jaw was rough with stubble that made Spike want to rub up against it, feel it burn against the forever smooth skin of his cheek. He dipped, stealing salt from Wesley's skin with a broad swipe of his tongue, and growled when Wesley's teeth caught his ear on a huff of overheated breath. 

"Keep talking," Wesley said, the words bitten into the flesh of his earlobe, harsh. 

"But below the neck... it was all fine fabrics... rich shit, silks an' linens so light you could see right through 'em." Spike spoke against Wesley's ear, his hips rocking a counterpoint to the rhythm of his words, his tongue flickering a counterpoint to Wesley's teeth. "An' in the dark, with all that smoke, all those dreams, an' dazed eyes, we'd slip right in, take our pick, hands slidin' up and under silk neat as you please. Findin' all that lovely pale skin just glowing. Warm. Little bitter like this." Spike breathed deeply against Wesley's skin, tasting, then the same fingers that'd once delved into silk, velvet, and fine lawn in China pushed away the last of the blankets, exposing Wesley's body, just as pale, to the gloom of the hotel. Pale save for the dark flush of blood making his cock stand out, stark and hard against his scarred abdomen. Spike folded his palm over Wesley, barely-there brushes that left his palm damp, and Wesley's skin slicked just right for a long hard stroke that released Wesley's teeth from Spike's skin, left him open-mouthed and breathing hard again. 

"Yeah... You picturin' it, Wes? Bein' one of them, so deep in the pipe it was just a nice dream, my fingers slidin' up for a warm handful of flesh, feelin' your pulse hammerin' under skin so thin, I could just about taste the blood on my tongue?" With every word, Spike slithered downwards, until he could lick a broad stripe from root to tip, drinking in Wesley's shudder as much as the taste. "This feel like no more than a good dream?" 

"God, no." The roughness in Wesley's voice had deepened with the tremors of his body, and his head pressed back into the pillow hard, exposing a thin white line etched into his skin. "Keep talking."

"Sometimes, the blood was too much to resist, all close an' offered up... yeah, like that," Spike breathed, hand sliding under Wesley's thigh as it lifted, pulled back to expose the tender inside where Spike bit with blunt teeth. 

"Yes, there..." 

Drinking in Wesley's groan, Spike bit again, capturing a thin fold with his teeth to trace his tongue over until the blood bloomed to the surface, holding Wesley's thigh immobile as he worked, losing himself in heat and human male musk that no soap could obscure for long. When he released Wesley's skin, Spike could hear his own breathing, feel Wesley's hands bunched in the fabric of his tee-shirt. 

"You're still dressed." 

"Gettin' there. Sometimes, I'd just drain 'em here." Spike could feel the pound of blood against his tongue through Wesley's skin, and nipped, drawing a hiss from Wesley, and a moan as he covered the bruised patch once more with his lips, teasing himself with the pulse that fought to break through. "Sweet an' rich and intoxicating. Hot." He breathed the word into Wesley's thigh, and smoothed away the shudder that ran through his body, rising to straddle Wesley's hips, hot against lukewarm, hard against hard, riding out his writhing, and leaned forward, grinding down against Wesley's cock until they both were breathing hard, close enough to share breath. "And sometimes, they tasted so good, so sweet, I'd pick 'em up, carry 'em some place more private, some place darker where only I could see, an' take my time."

Wesley's hips rose with a strangled groan, and he rocked restlessly against Spike, mouth open in wordless encouragement, feverish lips and tongue closing over Spike's fingers, sucking them into warmth enough to leave Spike light-headed. "Christ, you've got a mouth on you." 

"More," Wesley demanded, teeth scraping the lengths of Spike's fingers as his head pressed back into the pillows. 

"I'd pin 'em down," he caught Wesley's wrists, dragging them above his head, leaning into them, letting himself watch the play of expression over Wesley's face, the tightly closed eyes, and the pinch between his brows. And the tempting moisture of Wesley's lower lip, swollen where his tongue traced over it. So tempting. Closer, Spike leaned until he could feel the wet moisture of Wesley's moan, fill his dead lungs with living breath, and stopped, hovering close, but no closer.

"Spike?" Within his grasp, Wesley's fingers shifted, curled over his palms to find Spike's, feather touches over his hands. 

"Shh. Tellin' a story here, aren't I?" Spike asked, indulging in a slow grind against Wesley's pelvis as he sat up. "Keep 'em there." He gave Wesley's wrists a squeeze, and trailed his fingers down to rest over his chest, then up, over his own thighs that framed the twin wounds. "I'd pin 'em down, tie 'em maybe. Then I'd be strippin' off over 'em like this." He dragged his shirt over his head, letting it drop to the floor. "Still in the dark, mind, so all they'd hear is buttons an' fabric, feel my clothes all rough an' cheap against their skin, still not knowin' if I was real or an opium dream. Not fightin' though. Sometimes, they'd rub up against the rough tryin' to get more--god, yeah, like that." Spike stifled a groan of relief as he eased his zipper down, almost relishing the bite of the teeth against his cock as he shoved his jeans down enough to wrap his hands around him and Wesley both, shuddering with the heat. "Didn't care much for finery, those days. It was skin or whatever covered me. Left the expensive shit to Angelus and Darla-" 

Wesley's shook his head urgently, hands fumbling blindly for Spike's lips to press there, silence him. "No--no--don't mention them. Tell me. Just you. Only you." 

"All right." Spike spoke against Wesley's palm, teeth catching a fold of skin, then laving it with his tongue, tracing the curve of skin between thumb and forefinger to the callus Wesley still bore from hours and hours of writing. "Shh..." He bit, satisfied when Wesley's hands dropped, with a sigh, back over his head, stretched out beneath Spike. "Good lad. Stay there." Only with an effort of will did Spike let go, sliding off of Wesley's hips, and resting a steadying hand on his belly when they lifted on a moan of wordless protest. "Not goin' anywhere further than the sink." Sliding out of his jeans, Spike resumed the story, hoping he'd seen the bottle of lotion he remembered, and that it wasn't only wishful thinking. "Sometimes, I'd tie, 'em, leave 'em spread out, an' watch. I'd talk to 'em sometimes, watchin' em sweat and rave till it got too much. Sometimes, till they started comin' down, and sweatin' out all that withdrawal pain." Spike returned, lotion in hand, and a knee on the mattress by Wesley's hip, dropping his lips to the concavity of Wesley's belly to bite. "Till they'd take anythin' as a distraction." He trailed a hand down over Wesley's balls, stroking oh so delicately behind, a dry trace, light pressure. "Sometimes, they'd beg." 

"God, please, yes." 

"An' once they begged," Spike heard his own voice roughening with the need to sink his cock into all that tightness and heat, ripping the cap from the lotion and letting it pour haphazardly over his fingers, the first going in rough and hard, "I wouldn't keep 'em waiting." Spike drew breath, easing himself between Wesley's legs, transfixed by the way Wesley's body accepted him, pressing back as if trying to have more of Spike in him. 

More... A brief flutter, beyond the arousal, lit in Spike's chest, and he shook his head, growling at himself. _Not now. Just a shag_

"Don't stop!" 

"Not stoppin', pet. And sometimes, they'd beg me for that too. Didn't like it rough, yeah?" Spike retreated, and groaned aloud as Wesley's body spasmed open around three fingers, arms raised, legs spread wantonly for Spike. "But you do." 

"God, yes." Wesley's eyes were tightly closed now, an expression of intense concentration, almost pain on his face as he worked himself against Spike's fingers. "Did you tease them unmercifully too?" 

"Nah," Spike said, letting his fingers slide out, slow enough to drive them both mad, and dragged the last of the lotion over his aching cock, the sight of Wesley spread wide and opened enough to shake free the last of his control. "All the teasin' was for me." Wesley's groan turned into a choked gasp as Spike shoved in all at once, bringing him back to whisper in Wesley's ear, pinning him. "But I've never been famous for my patience." 

"I seem... to have lost mine," Wesley gasped as his restless shifting eased Spike in that much deeper. 

"We're gettin' to the good part, pet." Spike shifted, hissing at the clench of Wesley's _(hot, so bloody hot)_ muscles around him as he began to move. "I'd have 'em, writhin' under me, fast, and hard, and there'd be a moment--just one, when it'd hit 'em through the haze, all at once, and hit 'em hard that it was real, I was real, an' in just that moment, all they knew was me." Spike's words sped with the movement of his hips, the sound of flesh on flesh rising beneath them. "All they wanted was me, and that... is when.... they'd taste so _fucking_ sweet." With a low growl, Spike fastened his lips over Wesley's pulse, sucking hard, hard as if to draw all the blood in his body through unbreached skin, hard as if he'd sunk his fangs into the artery that fought and pounded against his tongue as Wesley released a strangled cry beneath him and came until he was all Spike's world, and all Spike knew, heat and pulse, and blood, and clutching clenching flesh exploding beneath his skin and behind his eyes as orgasm ripped through him.

 

11\. 

"Wes? Hey, c'mon." Spike gave Wesley's shoulder a gentle shake, though something in him wouldn't, couldn't quite try for a morning kiss. For all the places his lips had gone the previous night, Wesley's mouth had not been one of them. Possibly for the best once he'd made good on Lorne's promise. 

"Hey--Watcher."

"Mm. Do you call everyone that the morning after?" Wesley's eyes opened slowly, unfocused, and he made no move for his glasses, though he graced Spike with a drowsy smile.

Spike shrugged, looking down at his hand on Wesley's shoulder, watched it as if it wasn't a part of him as it moved to Wesley's chest, resting over the beating heart there, trying not to let the smile worm its way into his dead chest as it wanted to. "Still called Buffy 'Slayer' sometimes," he said absently.

"You have a kink for Slayers that's been well documented, Spike." Wesley's hand came up, and lay over Spike's until Spike shifted his fingers, allowing Wesley's between.

Spike was left thanking whatever gods listened to souled vampires that his bloody heart hadn't gone and tossed him in love overnight again, because that would be too sodding pathetic. But the ongoing warning twinge in his chest and the warmth seeping up his arm from Wesley's heartbeat worried him. "How do you know I don't have one for Watchers too?" A second quick prayer to the small deity of souled vamps went up hoping that he hadn't opened his sodding mouth for anything too poofy the night before. Well, in the literal sense, yeah. Another bloke's cock down his throat was pretty much the definition of poofy, but he hadn't said anything poofy. Unless 'oh _fuck_ yeah, Wes! God, shove it in already!' were to be counted somewhere around the third go 'round. Which it probably should be--in a strictly technical sense, but- "Huh?"

"I'm fairly certain I would have heard something to the effect," Wesley said again, fingers tightening over Spike's, then loosening to rub absently at the callus-free skin. "Of you having a kink for the seduction of Watchers. From Giles if no one else." 

"Rupert's so deep in the closet, he's sitting on poodle skirts and home bonnet dryers." Spike snorted, brushing his lips over the join of their fingers. "And the rest... don't mean I left them alive to tell tales."

"I seem to be alive." As if to punctuate this statement, Wesley drew Spike's fingers to his throat, pressing them against the impressive bloom of bruising Spike left the night before, and his pulse beneath. 

"Well, souled now. Wasn't then." Spike felt obscurely as if the conversation was getting away from them and that it was somehow rather unfair, his fingers stroking apologetically over red, pink, purple, black. Taking advantage of a bloke who'd spilled the greater portion of his brains the night before and hadn't even had a nice bag of O neg since wasn't fair, was it?

He was drawn back to the now with Wesley's hand at the back of his head, fingers warm in his hair. "What's bothering you?"

Spike's fingers twitched, and he wished for a cigarette, steeling his voice into the casual friendship they'd had before the hotel. "Something I meant to tell you before."

"You achieved Shanshu in the night and were dying of syphilis as a human, so my bits may eventually fall off, and I'll go blind and mad, but at least we'll go blind and mad together?" Wesley asked with a small smile, his fingers stroking lightly.

"I was a good man as a human, I'll have you know--my only vice was writing bad poetry." Of course, as a vampire, he'd added considerably to his collection of vices, and he didn't want to make withholding information from Wesley one of them, however much the idea of letting Wesley hear what Lorne had seen in his reading made him tense and want to run outside for a smoke. "Before we left, Lorne read me. Now, I don't wanna know what he read--I've had it with foretelling and foreseeing, and yeah, even forewarning. I've never been much of a planner, but I promised him I'd give you the chance to make a call and hear what he saw, right? So now's your chance before we leave here--you call Lorne now or you don't, cause from here out, it's gonna be a straight run to the airport, and getting you to London."

Wesley's hand in Spike's hair froze, then slipped away. "Why the sudden hurry? Last night, you said there was no rush at all." 

"Want to get it over with, don't I?" Spike couldn't look at Wesley once his touch withdrew, utterly denying any disappointment that might be making his heart ache. Wes wasn't in his heart--not that way, therefore, no ache. 

Wesley pulled away. "Of course." 

"So you gonna call or not? Cause sun's down in an hour, and I plan to leave this room with my skin tingling just this side of smoky." 

"Of course," Wesley repeated, this time pulling away from Spike entirely to hunt for his trousers on the floor. 

"They're hangin' in the closet." 

Wesley's eyebrows arched. "Were you feeling domestic?"

Spike shrugged. "Nah. Passions was pre-empted and we've got a south facing room. Bastards." And he hadn't been able to sit still, couldn't bear holding this warm human body all night only to give him up again in the morning. But he had to check. Just to be sure. "All right, Wes?" 

"Perfectly fine, Spike. You?" 

Spike took a deep, unneeded breath. "Just fine." 

"Good. I'd like Lorne's number, please." Wesley slid into his jeans, paused, and then pulled on his sweater as well, concealing all but the mark on his throat from Spike. Accepting the phone number, Wesley put on his glasses and stared blankly at the paper, very still. 

Spike swore silently, fighting the urge to rip the paper out of Wesley's hands, and instead fought for casual, sitting on the opposite bed and pulling the phone across, handing Wesley the handset. "Lemme dial, yeah?" 

"Yes." The stiffness was back. Full force. 

"You want me to leave you in privacy?" _Just a shag. That's all we promised._

Wesley cast a glance at the faint illumination seeping in around the edges of the blackout curtains. "I think that won't be necessary. Hello, Lorne," he said into the phone, turning inwards so deeply Spike felt he may as well not be in the room at all. "It's me. I want to know what you saw when you read Spike." 

Spike shivered, and turned up the volume on the television to make sure he couldn't accidentally overhear the tinny voice on the other end of the line, concentrating hard on Sharon Osbourne instead. Not a bad lady, that one; knows how to stand with a bloke through all sorts of things an' still-

"Are you certain?" The sharpness of Wesley's tone cut cleanly through Spike's thoughts, and he risked a glance at him, frowning. "No--Lorne, you must be mistaken ... well read me then! Yes, over the telephone. I don't care what I have to sing." 

Spike's stomach clenched, and then flopped, and he fled to the cooler confines of the bathroom. He ripped off his clothes, turning the water up as high as it'd go and standing under the spray until Wesley's words were indistinct, Wesley's scent was washed away, and his ears were full of water. Sodding _hell_ , couldn't the bleeding Powers that Be leave him alone already? 

Who'd he have to get down on his knees and blow before they'd bloody well let him _be_? Spike fought the urge to slam his fist against the tile wall, tremoring with the effort of holding it back. Holding that back anyhow. Face was already wet--couldn't see the rest, and he wasn't fucking crying. Not some nancy poof here wanting nothing more than to crawl into a nice pair of arms and be told he didn't have to dance for the Powers if he didn't want to. 

The water was icy by the time Spike reached for the soap with shaking hands and he scraped the rough flannel over himself, head bowed. 

Wesley knocked on the door, brusquely. "Spike? Are you all right in there?" 

_No, I'm not bloody well all right. Or even part right. I'm tired, you pillock--and I'm so sodding tired of being tired._ Spike raised his voice to be heard over the water. "Yeah. 'M fine. Just usin' up the hot water before we leave. Phone call go all right then?" 

"As well as can be expected." Wesley's words were clipped, voice tight. "It's sun down. We'd best be on our way." 

"Oh." Spike stared into the falling water, blinked slowly, and decided he must have been under the water longer than he'd known before shaking himself and turning it off. "Yeah. Right. Well. Be out in a second then." 

"I'll wait for you in the car." 

"Yeah," Spike said, no longer bothering to raise his voice when he heard the outer door open and shut. "I wanna get out of here too, mate." Though he had a sinking feeling that there was no place far enough to run to get away from the Powers That Be. Sod Wolfram and Hart. The Powers, in their infinite ineffability, were a hell of a lot worse.

 

12\. 

The silence, Spike decided, was a lot worse on the last leg of the drive. At least before, he'd had the occasional hum or giggle from Wesley, not the thick silence that lay between them from the time they pulled out of the Motel, punctuated only by the necessities. They'd picked up a predictable pattern early on: 

"You hungry?" 

"No." 

"You need to stop up there?" 

"No." 

"All right, Wes?" 

"Fine, Spike." 

So the last wasn't strictly necessity, but Spike had long since come to terms with his nature's need to take care of damned near everyone put in his hands, unfortunately. Well, wasn't anyone here to tell him it wasn't a vampirely thing to do. And he had a soul now. Decent excuse, souls, for being a sad, sad wanker of a Big Bad. 

And he'd done the solace thing before too. Least there wasn't any disgust floating around, and he hadn't been beaten up afterwards this time. He didn't have much to find himself estranged from either. Just potential. 

Spike glanced over at Wesley, taking in the thin line of his mouth and his unfocused stare through the front windshield. 

Even a small estrangement was bloody lonely, nice as it'd been to feel, for a little while, welcome. "What do you reckon the Watchers have cooked up for you, then?" Somewhere in Pennsylvania, he tried again. 

"I wouldn't presume to guess." 

Five words at last. Better than one or two, Spike decided, so went on. "Lorne didn't tell you anything about them? Not from my vision, just about them and their plans." 

"No." 

Spike sighed. Back to one word, and he knew when to give it a rest. At least for another two hundred miles or so. 

"Might not be bad," Spike said, when the silence finally got more than he could bear again. "Hear Red's still with them--she could have the mojo ready and waiting for you when you get there, get it all fixed up proper the moment you're through the door." 

"That appeals to you, does it?" 

Spike startled, wondering what Wesley was getting at. "Fuck, yes! Get you back to normal right quick." 

"You'd like that?" 

Spike risked a glance at Wesley, at the non-expression on his face. "Yeah. Don't like seeing you suffer." 

"Why?" 

Spike resisted the urge to pull over onto the shoulder to face Wesley dead on, and returned his eyes to the road. "What kind of question's that?" 

"A reasonable one. I'm not your responsibility any longer than it takes to get me to the Watchers. Why do you care what happens after that? You'll be back here and I'll be ... staying there. And I can't imagine that a one night fling with me would be enough to cost you your heart--or your soul." The apathy of Wesley's voice sank to hollow emptiness, and Spike frowned, catching a movement out of the corner of his eye, one hand coming to rest over the scar, the other coming to rest over his chest. A memory of that same hand resting over his own chest scalded Spike's skin, and he gripped the wheel tighter, feeling a phantom thump beneath his ribs. 

_Oh no, you are not makin' out I'm lookin' to abandon you._ Spike stole a quick glance over Wesley's closed off expression, and ran a mental scan over when he'd gone from playful to shutting down. "One--my soul's stuck tight. No poofy clauses here. Two--I take my responsibilities seriously these days," Spike said carefully, taking in the minute frown on Wesley's face, the confusion, and the resumption of bleakness. 

"Of course."

Overhead, a sign flashed past, counting down the miles as the hair on the back of Spike's neck prickled with impending dawn. "We're gonna have to stop for the day again," Spike said, hoping it came out casual, and slowed as they approached an exit with vacancy signs up on the Motels. "And I wasn't planning to come back here," he added, very quietly, keeping half an eye on Wesley, just enough to catch the startled glance that flickered in his direction. 

"I can't imagine what England would have for you, Spike." 

"Better music, better beer," Spike answered automatically, pulling into a parking space and shutting off the engine, facing him fully in the pre-dawn blues and purples. "Proper footie."

"Slayers?" Wesley guessed, staring back at Spike with a lift of his eyebrows, one hand resting on the door handle, but not yet moving to get out. 

"Watchers," Spike countered, and slipped out of the vehicle before Wesley could answer, jogging across the parking lot to book them a room. He met Wesley half way across the lot on the way back and thrust a key at him, pointing. "It's that room there. I've gotta make a phone call first. Clean up or nap or something." The imaginary thump in his chest had turned to a flutter, and Spike promised himself that if it all went to hell, he could still take the money and disappear. Maybe to Manchester. 

Skin itching, Spike dashed to the fast food franchise across the street to place his call, then ran back to the room, feeling the first burning tendrils of smoke wafting off of him as he slammed the door behind him and sagged against it. 

Wesley dangled the phone headset with one hand, watching him calmly. "Wouldn't this have been less--extreme, Spike?" 

Spike eyed the phone, and shrugged as casually as he could manage. "Where's the excitement in that?" Still, he couldn't quite resist patting the back of his neck, shivering. Risking the sun just didn't have the old appeal after actually burning up. 

"I could have simply waited in the car if it were that private." 

"Wasn't private." Spike tossed his coat over the chair and threw himself onto a bed, tucking his arms behind his head. "Just didn't want Krevosh demons gettin' impatient and turnin' up here. This way, they've gotta wait for me to get to them." 

"I beg your pardon?" Wesley sat up sharply. "Krevosh demons are a particularly bloodthirsty breed of-" 

"'S alright. He's an old mate of mine, this one. But that don't mean I trust _his_ mates." 

"And you were calling your Krevosh demon why, Spike?" 

"Need somebody to buy that hulking bruiser machine out there, don't I?" Spike carefully did not look at Wesley as he spoke, waiting for Wesley to come into his range of view, looking down at him. 

He didn't look happy. "Again, why?" 

Spike sat up slowly, until their faces were inches apart, but made no move to touch Wesley. "Because, you sad tosser, I am just soft enough to become attached to you after four days and a damned good night, and I'm best off lookin' after someone, all right? And I'd rather have some dosh of my own to keep me in the manner to which I have become accustomed." 

"I do not need looking after. And you're accustomed to living in dingy holes in the ground. I appreciate what you've done helping me to reach the Watchers, but I assure you that I am not an invalid in need of constant supervision." Wesley stiffened, drawing away, and Spike cursed silently, shooting out a hand to grasp Wesley's wrist tightly before he could get away entirely, and hauling him down to kiss, tongue breeching startled lips before Wesley found the presence of mind to kiss back, hesitantly, no more than a slick twine of flesh, but it was enough.

Slowly easing back, though he didn't let go his grip on Wesley, Spike held his eyes, then looked down at their hands, and his own hold on Wesley's pale wrist. "I said it all wrong." 

"What is this, Spike? I told you I can't make you any promises." 

"Not asking for any," Spike insisted. "It's an offer. My offer." 

"No, Spike." Wesley jerked his wrist free, folding his arms across his chest. "I will not do this. You said you wanted to get this over with--well we're getting it over with, and then you're free of your responsibility, and free to do as you see fit." 

"What? No! Wesley, what did you think I want to get over with? I want this bloody drive over with. I want to stop running away." Spike finally let his arm fall, hands hanging between his knees. "I'm so bleeding tired, Wes. I'm tired of runnin', tired of fighting what I can't see, and tired of bein' alone. Aren't you?" 

Next to Spike, the bed dipped, and he looked up to see Wesley facing him, a faint flicker in the depths of those blank eyes. "So what are you offering?" 

"I dunno," Spike said, gesturing helplessly with both hands, open. "But it's maybe something. An' if it's something, I wanna hang around long enough to find out exactly what." 

"Why me?" 

"I'm not daft enough to believe in fate--or in the Powers that Be," Spike said, catching Wesley when he turned violently, and interrupting what he might have been about to say. "Yeah, alright, I can't not believe in 'em anymore, but I don't believe in the bleeding Powers givin' me anything I want. An' right now, I want you. Maybe it'll work; maybe it won't. But I'm thinkin' we could both do worse than givin' it a try."

Behind his glasses, Wesley paled, sitting forward, urgently. "Spike-" 

Spike shook his head. "It's an offer, all right? Haven't gone and lost my heart to you yet or anything sad like that, so if you tell me you don't want me around, I'll do what you want--leave you under Rupert's care an' make myself a scarce vamp." 

" _Spike!_ "

Spike trailed off at the intensity of Wesley's voice. 

"I have to tell you something about what Lorne saw." 

"No." Spike got up, and backed away so quickly he almost stumbled. "No. You leave Lorne an' my future out of this. This is a question about right now. You and me. No powers, no prophecies. Just yes or no."

"I can't." 

Spike took a long, unnecessary breath. "Right, then. Now we've got that straightened out, we can-" 

Wesley shook his head. "I can't until you know what Lorne told me. It wouldn't be right." 

Spike regarded Wesley sadly. "Wes-" 

"Is it worth it, Spike? Even if this doesn't work out--it's been ... nice. Knowing I'm not the only one who was there. Who went through it all." 

Spike took another half step back, but Wesley followed. "I dunno." 

"You talk a big game, Spike. But if you're going to make that offer-"

"I don't know. I mean--I don't know. It's not you, it's Lorne's bleeding vision." Spike stopped his retreat, looking closely at Wesley, feeling the ache in his chest grow again along with the bloody-minded hope that wouldn't go away. Feeling like goodbye and hello all at once. "If I'm gonna die in three weeks, I don't wanna know. If I'm destined for Shanshu and popping out little sprogs with a Slayer--I really don't wanna know. If I'm gonna save the world another bloody time and burn up for the good of humanity and Manchester United, I don't. wanna. know! Just..." He can feel the pleading on his face, and hear it in his voice. "...can't I find out in time? That's all the fun in living, finding out. And I wouldn't mind you bein' there when I do. So come on, Wes. What do you say? Give my way a try? Just a try. We've neither of us got anything left to lose."

Wesley hesitated, only long enough for the fluttering in Spike's stomach to leave him dizzy before nodding, once, and pulling Spike into his arms, tucking the vampire's head against his shoulder so protectively that Spike swore he felt his heart make that beat it'd been trying for so long. "All right." 

 

epilogue: 

Living with Spike was much like living with a particularly independent tomcat, Wesley thought, watching from the window as Spike sparred with two Slayers on the green below. 

Spike may have attached himself to Wesley before they left the Americas, but he hadn't settled into the Council-provided lifestyle nearly as quickly as Wesley had. 

First, there'd been cautious sniffing around the new territory, poking into all the offices, all the rooms, even the secret passageway that ran from Giles's office to the old kitchens. 

Then there'd been the skittish distances he kept from the other Watchers, Rupert particularly. Below the window, one of the Slayers shrieked, skidding into an undignified heap of plastic stakes and untied shoelaces, and Wesley hid a laugh, not at her expense, but at Spike, who was crouched next to her, already trying to untangle her feet. It was odd, he thought, the way Spike never seemed to mind the Slayers. Again, like the stray tom, taking to women, and keeping a wary distance from the men. 

He was lucky there was no marking of territory involved ... unless one considered the eternal bloom of bruising on Wesley's throat. His fingers crept up to feather over the mark that ached gently every time he turned his head, then quickly dropped his hand as the feeling provoked somewhat more reaction from himself than he'd intended. Wesley settled on the silly smile on his face and attempted to get back to work, a scatter of letter cards on the desk that he was to match and arrange, though his mind kept wandering. 

As if freed from the fetters of books, Wesley's mind had taken to wandering quite a lot since the spring, eyes seeing what's there rather than seeking out the words to tell him what he's seeing. Grazing over old wood and books that remained no more than interestingly bound bundles of paper for the moment, Wesley's eyes and mind wandered back out the window to the green, and Spike reclining on the grass, calling out instructions to the two Slayers. 

Despite Giles's conspicuous absense from the suite Wesley and Spike shared, he supposed they'd both been taken in with far more hospitality than either deserved. The Council was turning from the purebreds to the strays under the new guidance. 

He supposed that he and Spike _were_ both strays after a fashion, regardless of past lineage, and closed down the line of thought before he could finish likening himself to a purebred dog gone to seed on the streets, pathetically glad of finding himself back in the warmth and safety of an English manor house even if it meant yoking himself once more to instruction, rules, and--. 

... _Damn._

A laugh bubbled up inside, despite himself. _Can't even seem to control the thoughts without the words._ Still smiling, he turned a paper on the desk, forcing his eyes over the shape of the lines, making himself see the letter as a picture, then placing it in order next to the matching letter, and reminding himself. Only "S" remained consistently easy, but there was progress. 

"Well I haven't heard _that_ sound from you much outside of the bedroom yet, Mister." 

Wesley glanced up, gracing Willow with a brighter smile that he hoped covered the blush, and let the laughter out. "I haven't any reputation left to ruin, I'm afraid. Particularly not if you've heard me laughing from the bedroom." 

"Only cause I have got really _really_ bad timing in looking for Spike." Willow made an eloquently uncomfortable face. "Some things about Spike? Still so not needing to know." 

Coughing to hide the last vestiges of embarrassment, Wesley gestured to the room's other chair. "Please, sit. Were you looking for me or did my utterly out of character laughter worry you enough to check on me while passing by?" It was astonishing how far away Los Angeles felt surrounded by Spike's "Scoobies"--even Willow didn't quite feel so much like the witch Fred had called to restore Angel's soul as just Willow. 

Willow flashed him a grin, folding into the other chair, and stealing a look past him at Spike out on the green who was now lying on his back, smoking, and watching the reflected distant city lights in the sky. "Uh huh. You ready for another round?" 

Pushing aside the scraps of paper and rolling his shoulders back against the chair, Wesley turned to face Willow more fully. "Please. Any distraction is welcome." Letting her take his hands, he settled himself at the edge of the chair, watching her face as she closed her eyes rather than the faint glow that emanated between them. 

"Has it been helping?" She peeked open an eye, impish smile on her face. "Beyond distracting you, I mean." 

"Yes." As he said it, Wesley spared himself a moment of relief that it was true. "Yes. It all becomes less fogged each time." 

"But it doesn't last?" 

"Sadly, no. It's lasting longer each time as well, however." 

Willow's lips drew down in a moue. "If it is a subconscious magical impediment, you have to want the ability back, Wes. I know." 

"I know. And I do. Each time, it's getting easier," he said, as he felt the fog over his mind once more lifting, revealing an A for an A, a Z for a Z, the returned knowledge, however brief, sending tingles of potential down his spine. "God, I do." His eyes swept the book shelves beneath a swell of longing, hope that he'd be able to get through even one before the letters grew incomprehensible again. He didn't even notice when Willow let go of his hands and patted the back of one. 

"Good. Hold that thought, okay? And maybe this time, it'll stick." 

Wesley turned grateful eyes to Willow, and stood, catching her hand in his, and holding it. "Thank you." 

She shrugged, holding onto the door frame and giving him one last Willowy grin. "It's what I do. Just promise me one thing, okay?" 

"If it's my first born, I'm afraid you'll be waiting quite some time," Wesley said, straight faced, though the temporary giddiness of having his full sight restored threatened to break through in an utterly unmanly giggle. 

"Uh huh. Well lucky for you, I'm not that kinda witch." 

"What do you want, Willow?" 

Willow's lips twisted to one side in a little half smile and her eyebrows lifted, all big eyed child with the power to end the world. "Don't do it again." 

"Only one get out of jail free card per Watcher these days?" Wesley guessed

"Huh? Oh! No! There's lots of get out of jail free cards. Whole stacks of them. But well, it'd be kinda nice to have someone else who knows what they're doing -- with magic, you know? Cause there's Giles, but he's really busy with everything else, and especially with him getting used to you and Spike still, and there's Andrew kind of, but he's still _Andrew_ and-" 

Wesley held up a hand. "Willow--my last use of magic was a spectacular disaster." 

"Your last use of magic was against a mage who could clean _my_ clock, buster. And if you don't use it, you're gonna lose it." 

Wesley couldn't help but steal a glance out the window at Spike who was, this time, looking directly up at him, and he smiled, warming from the belly upwards. With a smirk, and an inaudible word to the Slayers, Spike stood, shook out his duster, and began a slow stalk toward the manor house, his eyes fixed on Wesley's window with every step, producing a pleasant ache through the warmth suffusing Wesley. He cleared his throat, realizing he'd completely lost track of what Willow was saying. "What?" 

She gave him a distinctly kittenish scowl, but with no venom behind it. "We should pass all messages through Spike, or something."

Wesley felt himself flush, and stood. "I'm sorry." 

"Uh huh," she agreed, entirely too cheerfully, and let go of the door frame. "So you're gonna brush up on your control along with your reading?" 

"Is that what I agreed to?" 

"Yep!" Willow gave his hand another pat, and a reassuring smile. "It's not so bad. We'll have you spinning pencils by Christmas." 

"Oi! No spinnin' sharp wooden bits for practice around me!" 

"Mechanical pencils," Willow amended, flashing Spike a grin, and waving at Wesley, disappearing down the corridor. 

"Chatting up the birds while I'm not here to defend my property?" 

"I'm property now, am I?" 

"Damn right," Spike said, getting right up into Wesley's personal space, all night air, grass, and dead leaves, holding Wesley utterly still before his approach. Even now, not entirely unlike a mouse before the cat. Only mice didn't give in so easily when the cat hauled them down for cold kisses from chilled lips. ...wait... hadn't he been the dog in the metaphor when he'd thought of it? Wesley's thoughts trailed away in a vague hum of approval when Spike drew away to speak again. "She here workin' the mojo again?" 

It took Wesley's mind a moment to switch from kissing-Spike to answering-Spike. "Oh. Yes. And suggesting that I might work on certain matters of control myself." 

"Wouldn't be such a bad idea, would it?" 

"I suppose not. There's a great gulf between the theory of magic and its actual practice."

"Don't need to tell me that, pet. Half the danger of magic's in letting one or the other slack off--knowledge or control. Let either slide, and it's all buggered."

Wesley glanced at Spike sidelong. "So you would consider knowledge a good thing then?" 

"Well, yeah. Never turn down knowledge." 

"Would that include knowledge of your own future?" Wesley asked, archly. 

Spike groaned, attempting to pull away, but Wesley held on. "You are not gonna let go of that, are you?" 

"Mmm. No." Wesley's lips curved upwards. 

"I don't need to know all the bad stuff I've got waitin' for me." 

"Spike. Look at me." Wesley waited for Spike to meet his eyes, enjoying the firm, cool body against his. "Does it look like I know something terrible is going to happen to you?" 

"You didn't sound so playful about it on the phone to Lorne." Spike didn't move, but every word was spoken hesitantly, and he leaned back in Wesley's embrace. 

"It took me by surprise on the phone with Lorne." Wesley paused, considering his phrasing carefully before continuing. "I didn't believe he'd accurately interpreted what he saw." 

"And now?" 

"I'm certain he was correct." 

Spike sighed, deflating. "Would it make you happy if I knew?" 

"Oh yes." 

Spike let his head fall forward, resting it against Wesley's collarbone. "All right. Tell me." 

Instead of answering, Wesley loosened his hold on Spike with one arm, retrieving his cell phone and tucking it into Spike's hand. "You should hear it from him." 

"You gonna let go of me till I do?" 

"I'll let go of you unless you do," Wesley answered, catching the smile that threatened to form on Spike's lips, and answering it with one of his own.

"Sodding hell." Spike's words came out underlain with laughter, though, and Wesley felt the weight lift, just a little. "Give us the number, then." 

Lips twitching in a smile that didn't want to be controlled, Wesley fiddled with the phone until the recorder popped up, and he held Spike's thumb over the button to set it playing. "I don't need to--he recorded a message for you." Gently, Wesley pressed his thumb over Spike's, and Lorne's voice, rendered small, filled the air between them. 

"I knew you'd wanna know sooner or later. Wasn't even really your future, muffin. When I read ya, I found Wes's missing future. It's all with you. Congratulations, cream bun--and I wish you both all the best. Remember to send me an invite to the wedding." 

Spike's eyes were wide, lips parted, but soundless as Wesley stopped the recording and tucked his phone away. The stunned expression, though, quickly dissolved into confusion, and Spike pulled away to pace. "But -- it upset you when you heard it. I was there." 

Wesley watched Spike pace, but remained where he was, waiting for the vampire to come back to him. "You'd just told me you wanted to get it over with, Spike. What was I to think?" 

"I--you--" That stopped Spike in mid-pace, and he simply stood in the middle of the room, a blank expression on his face. "You're joking," he finally said, weakly. "You know I didn't mean get you over with-" 

"Yes. I do now." Wesley waited for Spike to figure it out. 

"And when you knew that-" 

"I tried to get you to call Lorne," Wesley answered with a small smile. "What do you think of the Powers now?" 

"I think," Spike said slowly, eyes narrowed as he stalked Wesley, catching him with an arm around his waist to pull their bodies flush against each other, "that it's a bloody good start on what we're owed."

 

END


End file.
